Episode Summary

In this episode, Melissa Swink discusses the concept of “inbox zero” and how her perspective has evolved over the years. She shares tactics for achieving “inbox zero” on a daily basis, while cautioning that this might not be the best goal for every business owner. Tune in for a nuanced perspective on inbox management, as well as some tips for having an assistant help manage your emails.  

Key Highlights:

• “Inbox zero” is the concept of achieving zero emails in your inbox, every day. 
• This can be achieved by reducing the overall email volume, redirecting messages to others on your team, and spending focused time in your emails each day. 
• Learn the importance of organization and responsiveness in managing email.
• Every business owner should decide if “inbox zero” is a reasonable or smart goal. 
• CEOs should prioritize big picture goals and initiatives that drive growth and success in their businesses.
• Email management is crucial for productivity, but it should not overshadow more important tasks and responsibilities.

About Melissa:

Melissa Swink, Founder & CEO of Melissa Swink & Co., has a team of virtual assistants who provide administrative and marketing support for small businesses and non-profits.

Since 2012, Melissa and her team have helped more than 100 businesses grow through the services they offer, and she is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create profitable, scalable businesses they love.

Her work is all about doing what works (and eliminating what doesn’t) and driving real, measurable results. Visit www.melissaswink.com to learn more! 

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Hi everyone, welcome to the Make Space for More podcast where we talk strategies for growing and scaling your business in a way that's authentic and aligned for you. I'm your host, Melissa Swink, and in today's episode, we're going to talk about Inbox Zero. Now, when I did a total website refresh last year, I decided to keep the three most popular blogs from the old site. And one of those blogs was How I Achieve Inbox Zero Every Day.

Now this is something that I used to talk a lot about. I've done trainings for clients. I know that I have written a blog post about it obviously. I have recorded videos about this. I've done reels about this. And Inbox Zero was something that I really took a lot of pride in and was something that I prioritized every day in my business because

I know that for so many business owners, myself included, we tend to be drowning in communication. We have so much coming our direction every single day. And also it felt like this goal or maybe even putting it on a pedestal of being to the level of organization in the business to achieve inbox zero every single

And so this is something that I spent a lot of time training people on. And I certainly think that it's important to have a system and be organized for all this information that's coming our way. Don't get me wrong. But to be perfectly honest, my stance on this has evolved a bit over the years. So before I dive into how it's evolved and what this looks like for me today and the advice that I give to clients today,

I want to recap my inbox zero tactics because I do still think that they are relevant and helpful to keeping your inbox under control. these tactics are adapted from Getting Things Done, David Allen's workbook. I know he has a book called Getting Things Done. I personally enjoyed the workbook because it was much more concise.

and to the point and had more actionable steps, but certainly both are good. So for inbox zero, what I have done myself and what I have trained so many of our clients and other business owners to do is to follow really these two steps, which is number one, reduce the overall amount of email that's coming in. It sounds really obvious, right? But it's something

needs to be prioritized as kind of that first layer of defense when it comes to email overload. So this can look like certainly unsubscribing from things that you just don't read on a regular basis. So going in and doing the unsubscribes, the second layer of this is to redirect as many messages as possible to others on your team. Let me give you an example of this.

I, of course, am the owner of my company. And so there was a time early on in my business where everything came to me. There was no team. All of the receipts for different software payments, all of the new client inquiries, all the questions that came in from clients, all the work assignments that came in for clients, all of that came to my inbox. And so over time, as we built the team,

I've been able to funnel a lot of things to the appropriate team members, especially when it comes to client work or client questions that have come in, things like that. But then to add this to the net, to take this to the next level in the last year after I hired my executive assistant, we created three more inboxes, which are accounting, team, and hello at Melissa Swink and Co. So accounting.

now has all of those receipts from all the different software renewals and things. Accounting also receives the invoices from our team members and so on. That's no longer coming directly to me in my inbox. That is going to this very specific inbox where things are categorized appropriately. Where accounting obviously only touches accounting. Hello at email.

is what all of our inquiries from the website and social media, those all funnel into that email address so that it can be taken to the appropriate person on the team depending on what it is. And then lastly, the team email that is specifically for people who are interested in working with our team. So that is where we have people, you know, sending in resumes or applications or that's where we do reference checks from when we reach out

references for potential team members, things like that. So these are all things that again, used to come into my inbox and are now being redirected otherwise. And I know we have set this up for other clients as well, where maybe they have kind of a general hello or info at inbox that somebody else is checking like a VA or an executive assistant, and then funneling those messages where they need to go.

or again, maybe it's a similar situation to what we have where they have maybe inquiries or maybe even podcast requests. That's another one. Maybe podcasts at a certain company, just different things where we can start lumping together groups of like information rather than having all of this random assortment of information dumped into one place. So redirecting, creating other inboxes, things like that. And then twice a

I recommend as a step two for inbox zero is to spend focused time in your inbox. I don't recommend keeping your inbox open all day, every day as you're working because your inbox can be the most distracting place on earth. And I also use a tool and recommend using this if you are kind of working out of your inbox throughout the day. It's a tool called Boomerang. I believe that it is free for Gmail. think there's an Outlook plugin as well.

But Boomerang will pause your inbox so that you don't have new emails coming in. Like maybe you go in in the morning, you do a triage of your email, answer anything that needs to be answered, and then you are off to doing other work that needs to get done. You can pause that inbox so that even if you go back in and refer to a client email or respond to something else, you're not bringing in more information for your brain to process during the day. Now, that being

once you have those twice day email checks blocked out on your day -to -day schedule, there's a couple of different things that you can do from there in terms of dealing with the emails that are coming in. So I like to use the three minute rule where if this is something that I can take care of right now and it's gonna take me three minutes or less, let's just go ahead and do it now. It's open, I've read the information, I'm thinking about it, might as well just act on it and get it taken care

Or if it's something that's going to take more than three minutes of my time, that is something that I will add a task for myself or somebody else on the team in Asana. We use Asana as our project management tool and I schedule a particular day that I'm going to handle what is being requested in that particular email. Now I may respond back to the person briefly and just say, hey, thanks so much for your message.

I have this on my, I will get back to you before the end of the week or something like that. So again, acknowledging and being responsive. Yes, I have this, I'm working on this. Here's when you can expect a more detailed response from me. So that three minute rule is really important. Another really important thing here is delegation. Can these things be forwarded to another member of your team or an assistant, somebody who can help get a meeting on the calendar? Maybe it's, Hey, Melissa, we haven't been in touch for a couple of months.

would love to get a coffee on the books. Now, we could probably go down a rabbit hole of meeting requests for the, and how to evaluate what to take and whatnot, but assuming that this is something that you wanna do, maybe it's handing this off to a team member. Yes, can you help this person find an open space on my calendar? Things like that. That way you're spending less time handling the things that are coming into your inbox. So delegating whenever you can. So those are really the tactics

I recommend and I leverage for keeping my own inbox under control. So I still use these processes every single day, again, with the help of an assistant. That's the stage of business that I'm at. I'm fortunate to have some help with all the things that I have on my plate. But my thought process regarding Inbox Zero has changed. And this really goes back to examining your role as the CEO of your company.

Even if you sometimes it can be a little bit difficult for you to really envision that role, especially if you are still working solo and you know, everything is your job as a CEO of your company right now in the stage of the business that you're at. But if you think about other successful CEOs and insert, you know, whatever name inspires you here. But, you know, when you think about what are the big goals and initiatives that you need to be focused on in order to really grow the business.

What are the big picture goals and initiatives that your CEO that you look up to or your mentors are working on? I can almost guarantee that inbox zero is not at the top of their list because what we wanna be focusing on are the big picture things like increasing revenue, building collaborations and partnerships and establishing those and growing those, nurturing key relationships

for you and your company. Maybe it's leading your team or creating a culture that is empowering and serves your clients well. Maybe it's just overall growth. I'll just go ahead and call it growth because every business has their version of what these things are. But these are the things that successful CEOs are devoting as much time and energy as possible on. It is not

Well, I achieved inbox zero today. Sales have been stagnant for the last six months, but dang it, I've gotten my inbox to zero every single day. That's really not something that successful CEOs are wearing as a badge of honor. Now, don't get me wrong. I think that organization needs to be the goal for the inbox because we all know how much time can be wasted trying to find information. We all know opportunities can be missed

We never responded to that person when they inquired about hiring us for something or, you know, there's just so many things that can get lost in the shuffle when our inbox is not working for us, that having an untamed inbox is not the goal here. But I also think that achieving inbox zero and putting that on the pedestal every single day is missed opportunities for more important things that need to get done. So I think

Organization is key and also being able to determine time sensitivity of the messages that are in your inbox. Is this urgent? Is this something that somebody else can handle and get to quicker than you or maybe even more effectively than you? Or is this something that, hey, thanks for sending this to me. I have a lot of meetings on my calendar this week. I will review this information and get back to you by Monday. That sort of thing. I think being

Responsive is important. think following through is important. But again, I don't think that achieving inbox zero every single day should be the goal here. So that is how my take on this topic has changed over the years. If you know a business owner or professional who is overwhelmed and maybe even drowning in email, and I'll give you a hint that's probably most people that you know, would you share this episode with them because they may be able to take away

some key tactics in order to help keep this under control. But then also maybe it would be reassuring for them to know like, hey, I'm not the only one struggling with this and it's okay if I don't have a perfect inbox where I have gotten through every single message every single day. So all of that being said, I would love to have you join me in the next episode for more Real

proven strategies to grow and scale your business in a way that's authentic and aligned for you. Thanks so much for listening today and we'll see you in the next episode.