Less-Is-More Blog by Pierre Khawand

Many of the business professionals we talk to seem to report that they spend endless hours in their e-mail inboxes. They tend to "live" there checking e-mail every few minutes or even seconds, having a dozen of e-mail messages open simultaneously, hopping from one to the next, and then deserting the latest one as soon as they hear the beep or see the alert, to open yet another message. Someone confessed recently at one of our workshops that when no new e-mails show up, he sometimes catches himself pressing the send/receive button repeatedly as if he is desperate for more. Does it sound like an addiction? Well, it is.

There is a lot more to discuss about this addiction, and this will be one of the topics we will touch on in future articles, but for now, we are going to focus on simplifying and optimizing the process--the e-mail management process that is. This is the second out of five strategies that I layout out in the last tip-of-the-month in which I also discussed the first strategy: "Using e-mail for what e-mail is best at."

The simplified e-mail process

Instead of "living" in the inbox and working on e-mail messages in an ad-hoc fashion, how about treating e-mail like any other task with a beginning and an end. We will discuss below how frequently we engage into this task, but for now, let us focus on the mechanics of this task. Let us also give this task a name: "Processing the Inbox." Processing the Inbox consists of the following:

• Going through the inbox one message at a time, starting with the most recent, and not leaving that message until we make a decision about it.
   
• If a message is urgent, we handle it right away.
   
• If a message is quick and easy, we hand it right away.
   
• If a message cannot be handled right away, for one reason or another, we make a decision about when we want or need to handle it and flag accordingly (or categorize it, or tag it, or label it, depending on which e-mail application you are using):
   
• If it has to be handled today, then flag it with a red flag
• It it can wait until tomorrow or later, then flag it with a blue flag
• If it can be delegated to someone else, then forward it to them, and flag it with a yellow flag

Processing the Inbox is not complete until you process all the new messages in the inbox (the messages that arrived since you checked the inbox last).

To see this process in action, view the free training module (see form in the left column) which demonstrates the step by step process (in this case for Microsoft Outlook 2003, even though the above process can be adapted to any version of Outlook or any other e-mail application that supports tagging or labeling such as Google Mail, and applications with add-on's that support tagging such as MailTags for Mac Mail).

The optimized e-mail process

Now that we have a process down, and we don't just do e-mail one at a time and endlessly, there is still an important questions to answer, and that is how often do we check e-mail? In other words, how do we optimize our workflow?

This brings us to the core issue that I have been evangelizing for years, and which I recently published in its most comprehensive form: The Results Curve--How to Manage Focused and Collaborative Time (free download available).  I won't discuss the details of the Results Curve here, but according to the Results Curve, it is best to check e-mail every 40 minutes, or whatever length of focused time you choose. So instead of checking e-mail every few minutes or few seconds or as soon as you hear the beep or see the alert, let e-mail wait until the next collaborative session.

This also means that at the end of the day, we need to leave room for an e-mail session, where we go through the messages we flagged for today, and handle these messages.

Before you answer your next e-mail, stop for a second and ask the question: Should I interrupt my current task and jeopardize my results, or should I wait until the next collaborative session?

Stay tuned for the next Tip-Of-The-Month article where I will discuss the next strategy: "Significantly reducing the output and the input."

The setting was our weekly Lunch & Learn Webinars, the topic was "Generations in the Workplace: Baby Boomers in Action", and our guest speaker was Peggy Wolf, who in addition to being a Baby Boomer herself, is also Senior Manager of Communications for the Services Division of Cisco Systems, and has been focusing for the past 3 years on Cisco's inclusion and diversity initiatives, and led the creation of a Multicultural, Multigenerational Toolkit for Cisco worldwide. 

The discussion covered a variety of topics and didn't stop at Baby Boomers, but got into cross generational issues. I enjoyed talking to Peggy and hearing her insights on this timely topic. Here are some extracts from Peggy's talk and stay tuned for the full recording of the interview to be posted at the "Accomplishing more with less" group on Facebook soon:

• First: Baby Boomers have a whole new range of issues to deal with, more so than other generations, including aging parents that need care, own health issues that they need to mange, and therefore the additional need for flexibility and balance.
   
• Second: Baby Boomers hold valuable knowledge and experience (Intellectual Property as Peggy called it) that need to be retained as this generation gets ready to retire. This brought up the bigger issue of what retirement looks like for Baby Boomers and which according to Peggy seems to have taken a whole new meaning. Retirement is no longer a clear cut transition but potentially a gradual and flexible hybrid approach which makes room for continued significant contributions to work related activities.
   
• Third: Having the different generations in the workplace together presents some unique challenges and opportunities, especially with Baby Boomers and Gen Y who represent the largest percentages of the workforce, and have very different work styles and approaches--and a lot to learn from each other.

Let us hear your comments about Baby Boomers in the workplace below! And hope you join us in future lunch & learn webinars including the panel where we hope to have Peggy (Baby Boomer), Jenny Blake (Gen Y), and Adam Christensen (Gen X), join a cross-generational panel discussion.

Additional Resources

• The e-mail and social media survey (including how generations deal with e-mail and social media)
• Gen Y in Action by Jenny Blake (recording available on the "Accomplishing more with less" group on Facebook)
• Gen X in Action by Adam Christensen (recording also available at the "Accomplishing more with less" group on Facebook)
• Upcoming Lunch & Learn webinar "Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn: The New Inbox in Action (Part 2)"
• Download Peggy's slides
  

In this series of articles, my goal is to tackle the issue of e-mail management from several angles. The e-mail overload problem is multi-faceted and not something that can be solved quickly. Most of us, bloggers and Twitterers are guilty of giving the impression that we can help our readers solve major problems by giving them the miraculous solution in a few paragraphs or even 140 characters. Let us stop this wishful thinking. Significant challenges require innovative solutions and persistent application of these solutions as well as ongoing learning and adjustment. This requires trial and error over a period of time until we find the winning formula.

If you are getting a large number of e-mails and feeling that e-mail is exhausting and out of control, I have some good news and some bad news for you. The bad news is that there is no immediate and easy solution (other than finding a new job and starting fresh, which is only a temporary solution). The good news is that there is a whole set of effective strategies that we can deploy to get the e-mail overload well managed. All together, these strategies are likely to bring us a significant relief and help us refocus our energy on the core issues and create more compelling results.

In the upcoming weeks and months, I will be writing a series of articles on this blog and elsewhere addressing at least five of these e-mail strategies and probably more. While many of these strategies are derived from the Accomplishing More With Less Methodology (see free e-book, workbook, and workshops), these articles will also include the latest findings from our ongoing research effort and will be part of the upcoming book on how to effectively manage your e-mail and Social Media activities. Hope you will join us in this effort and participate in the E-mail and Social Media 5-minute survey as well as post your comments on this blog.

The five e-mail strategies

Simply put, here are the five e-mail strategies:

1. Using e-mail for what e-mail is best at
2. Simplifying and optimizing the process
3. Significantly reducing the output and the input
4. Fearlessly facing the issues
5. Attacking the root causes

Let us start with the first strategy and stay tuned for more!

Using e-mail for what e-mail is best at

When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail:

Oh well! We have the hammer, and in this case it is called "e-mail." We have it and we tend to use it all the time. E-mail is easy. It is quick. It costs virtually nothing (if we are only looking at the hard costs). In addition, we can say whatever we want in an e-mail and not get interrupted by someone else's point of view (can be rewarding but dangerous). So no wonder why we are so quick to use it in almost any situation.

Blinded by the ease and speed of e-mail, among other factors, we tend to forget that e-mail is not the only tool for communicating. This is a list of some of the tools that can largely benefit us when used appropriately in conjunction with e-mail. What do you think these tools are ideal for and not so ideal for? Use this opportunity to jot down your answers and then compare with the answers below:

While there is not one answer, and no right or wrong answer, when it comes to how best to utilize these tools, here are some suggested answers as a starting point:

Let us add a few more asynchronous tools to the mix

• Blogs
• Wikis
• SharePoint
• Google Docs 

Blogs, wikis, Microsoft SharePoint, Google Docs, and other information and document sharing tools, can tremendously help take the load off of e-mail. One of the examples that I give in our workshops relate to how blogs for instance (in this case, we are referring to internal blogs) can help the knowledge experts within the team or organization answer important questions once instead of time after time, and make these answers accessible to everyone within the team or organization. E-mail is not the best way to leverage and share knowledge.

Let us start using e-mail for what e-mail is best at! Before you write your next e-mail, stop for a second and ask the question: Should this be an e-mail or not?

Stay tuned for the next Tip-Of-The-Month article where I will discuss the next strategy: "Simplifying and optimizing the process."

This question comes up from time to time in our Microsoft Excel workshops. VLOOKUP is one of the very helpful functions in Microsoft Excel. It allows us to lookup values from various lists and use the results as necessary.

For insatnce, I might have the following list:

And if I would like to find the Class Title that corresponds to Registration Number 10024, I can use VLOOKUP as follows:

=VLOOKUP(10024,A7:D16,4,FALSE)

In this case, VLOOKUP tries to find an exact match for 10024 and if it finds it, it returns the Class Title. In this case, it would return Word.

But what if VLOOKUP doesn't find the desired results. For instance if I am try to look for Registration 12020 (which doesn't exist in the list), then VLOOKUP would return: #N/A

While this may not be a big deal in some situations, it can be quite distracting if I am using VLOOKUP to populate a column in a report from another table (which is what VLOOKUP is best at). Suddenly my report may have several of these #N/A's which ideally would be replaced by something more user friends or be suppressed all together.

How can you manage or suppress the #N/A?

To manage or suppress the #N/A's, you need to make use of 2 functions:

• ISNA() which determines if the result of the VLOOKUP is #N/A
   
• IF() which allows you to replace the #N/A result or suppress it

This is the syntax of the "smarter" VLOOKUP statement:

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(12020,A7:D16,4,FALSE)),"Not Found",VLOOKUP(12020,A7:D16,4,FALSE))

Or if you want to suppress it all together:

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(12020,A7:D16,4,FALSE)),"",VLOOKUP(12020,A7:D16,4,FALSE))

Additional Excel Resources

Microsoft Excel Techniques workshop

Advanced Excel PivotTables

Microsoft Excel Macros

If you are been using Microsoft Word Styles (if you haven't, it is highly recommended that you do--see note below), and you want to get your Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and the rest of the headings to automatically assign numbers as shown below, you may have already found out that this is not something that you can do by editing the Headings Styles.

1. My Topic

    1.1. My Sub-topic

        1.1.1. My Sub-sub-topic

2. My Next Topic

    2.1. My Next Sub-topic

        2.1.1. My Next Sub-sub-topic

etc.

So how do you get the headings to show the multilevel list

The answer is actually easier than what you might think.

• From the Home tab, click the Multilevel List button (next to the Bullets and Numbering buttons)
   
• From the menu, select Define new Multilevel list, and the new window opens up

This is where it all happens:

1. Select each level starting with level 1 (in the top left list)
    
2. For each level, select the appropriate heading in the "link level to style" dropdown list that is towards the top right
    
3. Do this for each of the top 3 levels (associating level 1 with Heading 1, level 2 with Heading 2, level 3 with Heading 3) and keep doing it for move levels if you think you will need it.
    
4. Click Ok, and and voilà!

Now you will be able to assign Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. to your text, and they will be automatically numbers as shown here:

If you haven't been using Microsoft Word Styles to format your documents, this means not only you are spending too much time formatting and editing, but that you are not taking advantage of many of the features that the Styles would enable you to do.

Additional Microsoft Word resources

Microsoft Word Techniques webinars and self-paced classes

If you haven't explored Virtual Worlds yet, or if you have but still seeking more ways to leverage them, the observations below, from one of the workshops that I conducted in Second Life, shed some light on how Virtual Worlds can provide virtual teams with unique experiences and benefits that aren't otherwise possible. Keep on reading!

The workshop was the same but the setting was very different. Instead of people gathering in a training room or around a conference room table, we were gathered (as avatars) around the conference room table in Second Life. The level of experience varied, some being first timers in Second Life, while others having many hours of experience. However everyone got a chance to attend the orientation session and learned what they need to know in order to navigate and communicate properly.

The assignment

The next team-building exercise was about to start. We divided the team into small groups. Each group is assigned a task which involves searching for specific clues and relevant information around the island, collecting them, and reporting back to us within a specified time period. This requires that the small group members strategize on how they would approach this assignment and then execute and continue to communicate and collaborate during execution.

The challenges

In addition to the assignment itself, the group members had to deal with many group related issues:

• Some team members were more experienced than others (in Second Life). Accordingly the experienced members had to make some difficult decisions: Should they help their group and stay all together, or should they proceed on their own to get the assignment done faster?
   
• The groups were not given enough data about the assignment so they had to make some assumptions and decisions based on insufficient data.

The debrief

The time is up and some groups made it back on time while other didn't. Once everyone got back, we compared the results and discussed what went on.  This discussion was as rich and insightful as any discussion I have seen in person. We got to the core issues quickly and it was no longer about avatars but more so about the people. The issues became real. We reviewed what went on and how the different approaches and communication styles contributed to each person's experience and to each group's performance. Here are a couple of examples to illustrate these discussions.

• Someone made the decision to stay with the group even though her skill level is much more advanced. She could have gone much faster searching for the clues and relevant information on her own. However she saw more value in helping her group members and working as a team instead of getting the task done. We discussed her approach and the pros and cons of this approach. This brought some constructive discussions about how to manage daily situations where there might be significant discrepancies in skill level, and how to creatively balance between individual performance and group performance.
   
• One group member was frustrated with the above assignment because he wasn't "getting it right." He seems to have misinterpreted the assignment, and his group seems to have jumped into the execution phase without much strategizing. This was poor team work with incorrect assumptions which resulted in frustration and poor performance. Does this sound familiar? However, having observed this in the Virtual World, the group members got some valuable insights into how they can do it different in their daily work.

Got it?

There is nothing "virtual" about the above learning. It is as real as it can get. It is only possible because of the rich 3-D environment and rich communication tools that Virtual Worlds offer. Virtual Worlds are opening up the possibility for virtual teams to interact and strengthen their working relationships and collaborate more fully than ever before!

As we continue to promote collaboration technologies (such as blogs, wikis, and Microsoft SharePoint) and help teams use these technologies to reduce their reliance on e-mail and on meetings, we are always looking for easy ways to introduce these concepts to first time users.

This video "Wikis in Plain English" by Commoncraft continues to be top on our list when it comes to explaining what a wiki is and how it can be useful:

Even though the video is about a camping trip, the same concepts apply to any initiative or project in the business world! So instead of adding to the e-mail overload, get your wiki going and get your work done with less e-mail!

Additional resources

Lunch & Learn Webinar: Structured Wikis at Work- Enterprise 2.0 in Action

Emerging Collaboration Technologies: Blogs, Wikis, SharePoint, and more!

A few days ago, I posted an article about the Old terminology, new terminology: "People connecting with other people." A related topic that I have been thinking about is the "old" inbox and the "new" inbox. However the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is even a newer inbox: The Social Media Inbox. What do these inboxes mean and what are the implications of the advent of the Social Media Inbox? Keep on reading!

The old inbox

I still remember the days when the inbox meant internal e-mail only. I was in Southern California at a technology company with about 100 employees at the time and everyone had access to Microsoft Outlook and used it for internal e-mail and for scheduling internal meetings. The external world was not "visible" to internal employees. There was no Internet, if you can imagine. Only a few people had access to MCI and a few others to Compuserve. These privileged people were able to connect to the external world but still had to go through hoops to do it.

The new inbox

Then came the Internet and suddenly the "new" inbox was born. The new inbox is connected to the whole world. This brought amazing opportunities and also an unprecedented e-mail overload. Every person ended up with a handful of e-mail inboxes ranging from work, to personal, to "throw-away" ones just to keep unwanted messages out of the way. Soon after came the invasion of the mobile devices and e-mail on the go. Consolidating messages into one e-mail application and/or synchronizing between multiple applications and devices became necessities and many of us have done some degree of consolidation and synchronization along the way.

And now meet the "new new" inbox: The Social Media Inbox

Then Web 2.0 snuck upon us! Now we are all part of the creation process and part of the conversation. Like never before, we the people can share information, participate in conversations, and build our own social networks. We are in direct contact with the people who once were invisible. Suddenly we are no longer just in our e-mail inbox(es). We are now as often or even more often in our new and expanded inboxes: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, YouTube channels, del.icio.us bookmarks, StumbleUpon articles, and you name it, which all together I am calling the Social Media Inbox.

This inbox is emerging as a powerful force and even the most authoritative search engines are re-inventing their search approach to include the Social Media Inbox.

So what does it all mean? What are opportunities and the challenges?

The Social Media Inbox brings some unique opportunities and some rather unique challenges as well. On the opportunities side:

• We are connected with 100's of millions of people and are able to have real time conversations with them
• We are learning what they are like and how they think (market research)
• We are discussing our brand and the value that we bring to the table (marketing)
• We are influencing their buying decisions (sales)
• We are exchanging ideas and building on each other's ideas (innovation)
• And the list continues!

On the challenges side:

• We are faced with more information overload than ever before
• We are constantly interrupting our core activities to keep up with what is going on in the world
• We are not necessary leveraging this new inbox to the extent that we could
• And the list continues!

What does your Social Media Inbox (SMI) look like and how are you managing it?

If you haven't yet expanded your definition of the "inbox" and explored the Social Media world, this is the time to do so. Some exciting opportunities are awaiting you. If you have, this is the time to reflect further on the opportunities and challenges and how they can be managed to help us be more effective in the workplace and beyond.

As we continue to explore this topic and explore best practices to manage the SMI, we need your help! Please share your thoughts below or fill out this short Social Media Inbox survey (5 to 10 minutes) and we will share the survey results with you.

Take the Social Media Inbox survey and become part of the conversation!

We get this question often which makes perfect sense. After all, if you are using Microsoft Outlook, and have the benefits of the Outlook Calendar, doesn't make sense to want to view your SharePoint Calendar events in the same Calendar and not have to go to SharePoint to manage these events?

The answer is yes you can view your Microsoft SharePoint Calendar events in your Outlook Calendar and it is simple to set that up. Below are the steps that are involved in connecting your SharePoint Calendar to your Outlook Calendar, however, keep in mind that if you are using Outlook 2003, this would be a one way connection. You will be able to view the events but not edit them or add new events. However if you are using the Microsoft Office 2007 suite of applications, you will be able to make updates in Outlook 2007 and these updates will show up in SharePoint.

Here is the process of connecting your Microsoft SharePoint Calendar to your Outlook Calendar

From your SharePoint Calendar, select Action, and then select Connect to Outlook

As soon as you do so, you will be prompted for your user name and password and a new calendar will be created in Outlook:

And now you can view this Calendar in Outlook and if you are using Microsoft Office 2007, you will be able to update it from Outlook.

More Resources

• The complimentary lunch & learn webinar (Microsoft SharePoint Tips)
• The upcoming Microsoft SharePoint Techniques workshop
• The upcoming Managing and Organizing Your E-mail Inbox workshop
• 3 ways to get rid of e-mail--Using Microsoft SharePoint
• Question and Answer: When should I use Microsoft SharePoint and when should I use a wiki?

"Motivation Day 2K10" (organized by California Staffing Professionals) started today with a keynote by Craig Silverman, Partner and Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Albin Engineering, which was indeed insightful and motivating. Among the many things that Craig shared with the audience were these questions which he encouraged everyone to reflect upon and answer:

• How do I rank my ability to ask good questions
• How do I rank my ability to listen
• How strong is my understanding of my clients businesses and how they buy
• How good is my ability to track metrics, progress, and results
• How strong is my ability to develop great relationships

There were additional reflections, but I just want to highlight these areas because I would like to suggest that these apply not only to our success with our motivation in pursuing business goals, and our effectiveness in dealing with customers, but just as well in our Social Media effort.

The Social Media experts continue to stress the important of listening to the conversation instead of simply broadcasting messages (Brian Solis) and staying on brand instead of entertaining everyone with our lunch or weekend plans (Jason Alba in his lunch & learn webinar with us last year) and Elaine Starling (in her lunch & learn webinar last Fall). So could we extract some simple but valuable Social Media best practices from these insights?

A few simple best practices for our Social Media conversations

Best Practice #1: Observing and listening before jumping in and/or hijacking the conversation.

Best Practice #2: Contributing with relevant and compelling content; not the chatter! or use the 80/20 rule. In this case 80% compelling, 20% chatter.

Best Practice #3: Tracking progress and results using metrics that are carefully defined

This is a start, and now your turn to add to this! Please share your comments below!

More resources

• Craig Silverman's blog
   
• Brian Solis' blog
   
• Old terminology, new terminology: "People connecting with other people"
   
• How to avoid being overwhelmed and consumed by social media?