The only course you will ever need to get your business emails under control!

CONTROL OR LOSS OF CONTROL?

Let us ask you one question: Do you actively control your communication or are you helplessly at the mercy of your email inbox and have long since lost control?

For many of us, the inbox has become a source of daily horror.

It’s time to free yourself once and for all from the clutches of emails and external control. Do you want to work (and live) self-determined productively again?

If the answer is “YES!” and you want to learn how to manage your business emails with ease, this six-part course is all you need.

6 Course Objectives

• Gain (back) control over your own email inbox
• Communicate clearly and concisely via email
• Actively stem the flood of emails
• Easily get a grip on your own inbox
• Organize and automate emails effortlessly
• “Inbox Zero” –> At the end of the workday, you have an (almost) empty email inbox and feel good about it

Course Content (6 Parts)

• Part 1 – Mindsets & Problems – How Emails Destroy Productivity
• Part 2 – Smart Emailing – Creating Emails Correctly
• Part 3 – The Email Charter – 10 Rules Against the Email Spiral
• Part 4 – The “@1-2-3-Plus-System” – Organizing Emails Wisely
• Part 5 – Inbox Zero and the “FASD Principle” – Mastering the Email Inbox
• CONCLUSION – The Final Rules to Internalize Effective Mail Management

Part 1 – Mindsets & Problems – How Emails Destroy Productivity

333.000.000.000

In 2022, 333 billion emails will be sent daily worldwide.

It’s expected to increase to 376 billion by 2025.

The daily flood of emails is meanwhile one of the biggest productivity obstacles of all!

Depending on the study, we waste up to 50 % of our working time sorting, deleting, and replying to emails.

More facts:

• 615 business emails are received by an employee per week on average.
• 36 times per hour, the inbox is checked.
• It takes 16 minutes to refocus on work after receiving an email.

The 7 Biggest Email Problems

1. Emails are often misused – as to-do-list, chats, information repositories, document archives, etc.
2. Emails are extremely intrusive – they appear in our inbox uninvited and at any time.
3. Emails are often poorly worded, too long, and too vague.
4. Emails are in many cases the wrong means of communication.
5. Emails easily cause misunderstandings regarding the purport of the message.
6. Emails destroy time and productivity.
7. The email channel is open for EVERYONE – consequence: There are far too many emails and important ones are mixed with unimportant ones!

Let’s have a closer look into some of the challenges we face with emails and our handling of them…

THE CONSTANT LOOK AT THE INBOX

Why do you constantly check your inbox?

Why do you immediately run after every new mail?

The hard truth:

• You feel important and needed in this way!
• You have the illusion to have “worked through / done” something!
• Checking emails all the time has become an addiction!

Realization: You will only be really productive if you “go offline” from time to time and don’t let yourself be permanently interrupted by new emails but view your new messages block by block at sensible intervals (and process them immediately).

THE OVERFLOWING INBOX

Countless unread, repeatedly read and deferred emails in the inbox are not only an obstacle to production and success, but they also cause pure STRESS!

What is the effect of a full inbox?

• You don’t know any more which emails are really relevant.
• You don’t know if there was anything important to do.
• You lose the overview. You lose control.
• Loss of control = dangerous and unhealthy STRESS.

THE TOTAL OVER ORGANIZATION

With sophisticated filing structures, folders, and subfolders, we spend a lot of time trying to clearly structure our email filing for possible later access…

…and later we don’t know in which subfolder we should search for a special mail…

…or if a piece of certain information was available via email at all or if we have to search in another medium (paper filing, digital filing…).

OPEN TO EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE

• Emails are a “means of transport” for everything imaginable.
• The email inbox is for many like a to-do list to which anyone who wants can add a task!
• We react only ad hoc to the demands of other people and neglect our own priorities!

Change Your Mindset!

The first – and probably most important – step to get back control is to understand the problems, realize the challenges, and change your own mindset:

• NOBODY has time & desire to read long emails!
• Deferred emails are not clear tasks!
• My inbox does not determine my work focus, and email communication is not instant messaging!
• A detailed filing structure does not belong in Outlook or any other mail system!
• The time-consuming sorting of emails is a waste of time!
• Tomorrow, next week, or whenever I will probably not have more time available than today!
• I view an email and decide immediately! Based on the principle taught during this course.
• I have courage to make a decision and courage for the gap! E.g., not every e-mail must be read through (completely).

“Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.” 

Robert J. Sawyer

To be continued…

Part 2 – Smart Emailing – Creating Emails Correctly

Part 3 – The Email Charter – 10 Rules Against the Email Spiral

Part 4 – The “@1-2-3-Plus-System” – Organizing Emails Wisely

Part 5 – Inbox Zero and the “FASD Principle” – Mastering the Email Inbox

CONCLUSION – The Final Rules to Internalize Effective Mail Management