Increase Productivity By Training People To Use Your Inboxes
Productivity doesn’t occur in a bubble. No matter how meticulous you might be with the flow of your organisational system, if nobody plays along it wreaks havoc on your output. Train people to play along!
Photo by computershy.com.
At the productivity blog Lifehack.org they’ve highlighted three people you need to train to use your inbox: yourself, your coworkers, and your boss. We’ll assume that you’ve already managed to reign in your own urge to throw projects around willy nilly and that your inbox is your new best friend. What about when your coworkers and boss aren’t on board though? A personal example:
In a past life I was responsible for the IT operations in a cluster of offices. With a high degree of frequency I would arrive at one of the locations in my cluster only to have someone say with exasperation “The print server has been down for a week! Why haven’t you fixed it?” or some variation of “X is broke, I need Y.” Inevitably when I would ask them if they had sent me an email (my favourite way of getting notifications) or written it down in the log I kept in the server room (a serviceable, but less favoured way of doing it) the response would be some variation of “I called the office I thought you were at and left a message with the secretary.”, “I stuck a Post-It note on the server room door”, or my favourite “I talked to the guy on 3rd shift and he left a note for you.” I saw the guy on the graveyard shift as frequently as I saw my dentist.
What can you do in such a situation? While your initial response might be justified frustration, it is important to keep in mind that just as you scramble to meet the demands of your work so do your coworkers and superiors. You need to provide them with a tangible and gentle motivation to communicate and distribute information to you in the most effective way possible. Be prepared to repeat yourself a few times and to emphasise how making sure things are properly placed in your inbox and ready for your attention is the best way to get quick results. Explain the part of your system that is relevant and important to them getting better results:
- “I empty my inbox and revise my task list every evening before I go home. If the item that needs my attention is sitting in that box, it is guaranteed to get my direct attention by the end of the day.
- “I commute between several offices in our district, because I’m not always here to see physical notes you leave me the best way to ensure I respond to your problem quickly is to email me.
- “I appreciate you taking the time to bring the documents you wanted me to sign to my office, but I’m concerned they might get lost in the mountains of other stuff in there. I have a silver tray right on the corner of the desk just for important documents like yours.
Remember to frame your requests in such a way that fulfilling them appears—or in fact is!—a win-win situation for the person you’re talking to. Nobody will adjust their behaviour if they perceive you as being anal retentive and asking them to do something that has no benefit to them. Even if your request is polite and non-confrontational if your coworker sees no benefit for themselves in complying they’ll simply forget about your request.
You’re on a productivity blog, reading about ways to be more productive and make the most of your time. It might sound completely absurd to explain something like using an inbox in such an elementary way but the reality is your coworkers and bosses are most likely just furiously running through their day trying to get it all done in time. It seems painfully obvious that the tray on your desk is your inbox and where important things should go or that because you’re not in the office every day it’s silly to leave a Post-It note stuck to your door, but to your busy office mates it probably isn’t so obvious. A few minutes gently coaching them can save you enormous amounts of time and lost productivity over the course of the year. While you’re in the mood to coach and prod your office mates into helping your productivity flow, don’t forget to help them hone their email skills. If you have yoru own success—or horror—stories about getting people onboard with your workflow, be sure to share them in the comments below!
Three People You Need to Train to Use the Inbox [Lifehacker.org]
- Next Post: Paragon Partition Manager Free Today, Normally $40 »
- « Previous Post: Flashbake Automates Version Control For (Nerdy) Writers
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@mfusion: Your coworkers put stuff on your chair? That's strange, perhaps they figure if you sit right on it, you can't miss it?
@NathanIrwin: Between there being several cat owners on staff and a plethora of adorable cat pictures under Creative Commons license on Flickr... it's a veritable cattery around here apparently. ;-)
@NathanIrwin: oh, you poor poor bastard... i'm sure glad i'm not you right now
sure beats the hell out of having to clean of my office chair whenever i get back to my desk. i swear that everyone waits until i leave for the lav to give me work to do.
they're lurking around the corner i just know it.
maybe i'll start working standing up
I just want to know who at LH is responsible for all the cat photos that show up with posts.
Also: First?!
NathanIrwin
You know, I'm kinda new to office stuff. My last job working in a parking lot at Wal-Mart (where you can't convince the people you're annoyed with to behave otherwise *cough* customers *cough*). This is really a helpful kind of tip. Obvious once you think about it, but much like 'Lower your bills by asking' approach, it can elude you until someone tells you about it.
Thanks, LH!
By odd coincidence, I just eliminated my inbox this week, replacing it with a spot on the desk labeled "Mail Here." I find it quite liberating as it frees up space when there are no "in" items, and the novelty of having a boxless inbox seems to force people to recognize the designated space. I also feel more compelled to clear "in" items when they are there as opposed to being sequestered in a box.
Also, my predecessor complained to no end how people didn't know to use her inbox. When I pointed out the box wasn't labeled, her response was "they should know." As a result, I went the opposite direction and labeled every container in the office so there is no confusion as to where anything went.
sumocat
I have a large sign on my inbox. The inbox is necessary to keep papers from getting mixed up with the papers already on my desk. I hate stuff left in my chair as well. Anyone who is at my level or lower who leaves something in my chair or on my desk gets it back. Anyone higher than me who leaves something in my chair or on my desk has me at their office door with it in hand asking about it. Unless, in all cases, it was something I asked for. One of the problems with people leaving stuff in your chair is that it makes it look like you're not around even if you are.
LabanHippodamia
@BlackMage is doing the Time Warp agaaaaaaain!!!: I came back from vacation once... the network printer had stopped functioning in one office. The queue showed all the print jobs piled up. The one that started the cascade of non-printing? Printed ten minutes after I left for vacation. Two weeks later, there it was waiting for me.
Yeah, well, my idiot sysad has been notified six ways to sunday that we have a plotter and a printer out. He has gotten permission (because *I* ramrodded it through my boss) to get both under service contracts. Two months ago. The printer is working the plotter is still broken and is still not under the contract. I USED to work IT. I understand what his job is. He doesn't show up till noon, or later, and then leaves early. *I* treated my fellow employees exactly like customers. Now, I don't want to generalize, and this guy is definately worse than most, but this has been pretty typical of the places I have worked where I was not the IT guy.
OxfordKhavaran
# "I appreciate you taking the time to bring the documents you wanted me to sign to my office, but I'm concerned they might get lost in the mountains of other stuff in there. I have a black container right under the corner of the desk just for important documents like yours." (there, i fixed it LoL)
ValentinoStamkos
I currently work in IT for a high school district, and these kinds of things annoy me to no end.
I don't care how busy someone is. It doesn't take forever to enter something into our virtual calendar, send a 5-word reply email, or ask for input. I especially hate it when higher-ups intentionally give themselves more to do when simplistic tasks or projects can be accomplished by others (like me) who are just as responsible as those in charge.
"The print server has been down for a week! Why haven't you fixed it?"
I HATE this kind of crap the most. My only response each time is "We were not notified. We can't fix what we're not told about."
BlackMage is doing the Time Warp agaaaaaaain!!!
@Jason Fitzpatrick: That is exactly what I do to people that I need to get papers to. That or put it in their keyboard standing up in front of their screen. Then they cant type or see whats there without noticing the material. Works very well, so long as you don't have a lot of stuff, and no one else does it.
Jeremy Bunyard
Can I train my coworkers to just not email me at all? Or call me, or IM, or twitter? Cuz then I'd get so much done :)
saffyre9
@NathanIrwin: As long as they keep using cat pictures and not dog, i'm game. Cats are cute and serve as good pictures, specially when visiting the site with other people that might sneak up at your monitor.
brainshred
I thought this looked familiar!
There's an error in the bottom of the article:
Three People You Need to Train to Use the Inbox [Lifehacker.org]
OK, so shaking them and screaming at the top of my lungs, "SEND ME A %$#@ E-MAIL" is not such a good method?
Hmm, works for me.
I've trained most people to email me instead of leaving a voicemail by randomly responding to voice mail. Usually after a week. I do look at missed calls on the phone and call back without listening to the voice mail.
But I do concientious check and follow up on email.
So people have gradually learned that the fastest route is to email me. From there I either delegate account coding queries/GL dumps/reports requested to my staff or file or action it.
I also agressively (as possible) try to get people to go to my team for first level questions and don't cc: me. What they discover is that emailling me adds a half day or full day to the cycle - going to my analyst's keeps me out of the loop and gets them the info faster.
Of course I have to trust my team and when I get involved it's more of an issue but that's what I'm paid for.
As for putting mail on my chair, I'm not too fussed about it, my cubby is small and messy.
ursa
I had a problem with people putting random papers (stuff they should file, papers for other people, etc) on my desk when I wasn't in the office - the place is open 24 hours. I fixed it by placing a large bright note on my desk "This desk in not a storage place. Put everything in it's correct place - or you will be sorry.".
Anything that was still placed on my desk was stored in an empty drawer in my desk; once the drawer was full I divided the papers into piles for everyone to sort through and properly file. I haven't a problem since. I'm currently doing the same project with the fax machine.
@BlackMage is doing the Time Warp agaaaaaaain!!!:
The most common answer we've ever given to "The print server has been down for a week! Why haven't you fixed it?" and similar is:
"I'm sorry, we're good, but we can't read minds."
A very specific instance of a customer who decided that he was too important and the problem too urgent to use our job logging system, he sent me an informal email, then left me two increasingly irate voicemails. A day or so later he then spat the dummy and rang my boss to rant about me. After five minutes of this my boss politely informed him that I was away on four week's leave and if it had been lodged in the job logging system it would have been done by now.