I recently ran a course for a group of colleagues on e-mail handling. Though this is one of the classic benefits of GTD,  getting to grips with e-mail, it is one I have slightly avoided teaching or coaching. For me the chief benefit of GTD is that it clarifies your thinking; as a result you do not get snowed under so easily. Many e-mail handling courses are merely “go-faster” tricks for Outlook and fancy macros. That covers up the real problem. To handle e-mail, voicemail, drive-by bosses and a day chock-full of meetings you do not need macros or short-cut keys. You need to be able to think clearly and productively about one thing. Finish that thinking, store the result and refocus rapidly on the next thing.

I caved in and taught the e-mail class because I had the freedom to teach the basic principles up front: for everything that comes into your world you need to know the desired outcome and the next action. I also wanted to teach the class because the people doing the asking were being run ragged by e-mail. I have a personal mission to strengthen my colleagues and protect them from burn-out.

The course was a success. We made good progress and I shall follow up all the participants to check if the new behaviours have settled in, but from the questions I was getting during the course I am convinced that a number of them have “got it” and will incorporate GTD behaviours into their work.

To kick the course off I invented a little game, which you can try too… I wrote on a number of file cards some “e-mail headers” with things like “from the boss”,  ”urgent”, “legal issue” etc. and on the other side I wrote down prices, ranging from minus one thousand euros to plus ten million. I then scattered them on the table, price side down, and challenged my trainees to choose which of these e-mails they should work on to get the most (monetary) benefit. Of course the only way to choose with any certainty was to turn over all the cards. I then pointed out that if you did not handle all your e-mail you could not have priorities. You can’t prioritize your work if you do not know what your work involves…

As always when giving a training I learnt at least as much as they did.