FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities

Rapid Performance M O D U L E
TM

Managing Minutiae—E-Mail
E-mail has changed the way in which communication occurs. But for
many, its freedom and ease of use has created a daily deluge of
information overload.

Purpose This lesson will teach you how to begin the process
of creating a proactive and effective strategy for
managing e-mail.

Have You Ever Felt This Way?

It’s a never-ending battle.With a sense of resignation, you log in
to your computer and await the new inbox total.The screen fills
with subject lines, and you realize it will take a good portion of
the day just to deal with them all. But you can’t ignore them,
because mixed in with the junk mail, FYIs, CC’d updates, one-
word responses, notifications, and the joke of the day are the really
important things.
How can you take control of your e-mail rather then allowing it
to take control of you?
“Men have become the tools of their tools.”
© 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
—Henry David Thoreau
Managing Minutiae—E-Mail

Understanding the Concept

Managing e-mail is about spending your time more effectively in
your inbox.Your goals for e-mail management should be similar to
the following:
• Touch each e-mail message only once.
• Schedule the time you spend reading and responding to
messages.
• Be proactive instead of reactive.
• Quickly ascertain the relative importance of each message.
• Spend time on the e-mail messages that matter most.
• Effectively archive messages for retrieval at a later date.
• Empty your inbox every day.
Accomplishing these goals requires that you perform three broad
activities:
• Screen
• Prioritize
• Resolve
You will need to fine-tune each of these activities as you customize
your e-mail strategy to meet the demands of your particular job.
Technology, corporate culture, and position, as well as the industry
you work in can influence the e-mail you receive and send.

Screen
When you screen e-mail, you make fast and consistent decisions
about how to handle each message. Similar to a medical triage unit,
you quickly sift through and assess which messages are critical and
which can wait.The key, however, is to establish a set of
measurements for identifying “vital signs” in e-mail. Many e-mail
programs use “rules” and “filters” to automate this measurement-
and-identification process.
2 © 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
 FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities

Rapid Performance M O D U L E
TM

Generally, an e-mail “rule” is comprised of three logical constructs:

• Condition
• Action
• Exception
Condition. A condition identifies a specific message attribute.You
could construct a condition that looks for all e-mail messages with
the term “FYI” in the subject line.
Action. An action defines what happens to a message if a particular
condition exists.You could set an action to flag any “FYI” messages
with a “low” priority marker.
Exception. An exception provides an additional condition (or
conditions) that if true, will cancel the action.You could create an
exception for messages with your vice-president’s name in the
“from” field.

Prioritize
Prioritizing is vital so that you deal first with the e-mail that matters
most.With screening rules in place, some of your inbox messages
will have had actions applied to them (such as prioritization flags,
changed font colors, or movement into a designated folders). Using
views (predetermined message arrangements or formats) and sorting
criteria (arranging items in an ascending or descending order), you
can organize your messages into similar groups.
How you combine screening and prioritizing will depend largely
upon your own creativity, familiarity with your e-mail program, and
business needs. Most e-mail programs contain a built-in prioritizing
hierarchy, allowing users to designate the importance of messages:
• Optional (low)
• Important (normal)
• Vital (high)

© 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
3
Managing Minutiae—E-Mail

Ideally, once e-mail has passed through the screening process, only a
small percentage should be vital or optional.The bulk of your e-
mail should remain in the “Important” category.This bell-curve
analysis can be an important big-picture tool for making
adjustments to your screening strategy. For example, if the bulk of
your e-mail is constantly prioritized as low, you may want to
become more aggressive in your screening, or ask to be removed
from distribution lists.
Prioritizing isn’t about placing a value on the message itself, but
rather a way to order how you will spend your time.

Resolve
Resolving refers to the action you will perform on the e-mail itself.
Your goal should be to touch the e-mail only once and then apply
the FAD model: File, Act, or Delete.

4 © 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
 FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities

Rapid Performance M O D U L E
TM

File
Increasing storage capacity and decreasing storage costs make it easy
to store all e-mail for possible future reference. Creating a single
archive folder is usually sufficient for expired messages. (Setting up
complex levels of local folders is a somewhat antiquated habit derived
from the layout of physical storage cabinets.) With sophisticated search
engines now a common part of e-mail programs, information
retrieval from one large folder can be accomplished as quickly as
hunting through a large series of cascading file folders (although,
depending upon your job requirements or archiving processes, a
folder hierarchy may make better sense).
The important thing is to get the e-mail out of your inbox every day.
When you file an e-mail message, make sure to make an
appointment with yourself if you know you will need the material
on a specific date. Immediately add a task to your task list or
calendar that directs you to retrieve the information at the
appropriate time.
Act
Much e-mail requires a particular action on the part of the recipient.
Because the e-mail in the inbox has already been prioritized, if an
urgent action is required, you can accomplish it immediately without
fear that some other, more pressing e-mail, is waiting. Immediately
add non urgent actions to a task list or planning calendar.Then take
the e-mail out of the inbox and file it for future reference.
Delete
Some of the e-mail you receive has no value as a stored document.
Remove one-word replies such as “Thanks!” and other such e-mails
from the inbox and delete them. If a message cannot be categorized
as a task, an appointment, or a piece of relevant data, you should
probably delete it.

© 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
5
Managing Minutiae—E-Mail

Case Study
Christine, a mid level manager at a technology company, has been
spending more and more time dealing with her e-mail. As she
opens her inbox, she notices a large number of new, unopened
items in addition to those she read yesterday, but didn’t have time to
resolve. She begins at the top of her list (her e-mail is sorted by the
date received) and begins reading each item.The first e-mail is a
request from a member of her team for time off. Even though it
isn’t urgent, it needs to get done. She leaves her e-mail and spends
10 minutes approving the request using the company’s online
system. Returning to her e-mail, she deletes the message and moves
on to the next one—an e-mail from a customer requesting
technical information. Because responding to this one will take
some time, she makes a mental note to get back to it and leaves it
in her inbox as a reminder.
Ninety minutes later, Christine takes a look at what she’s
accomplished. She’s managed to open most of her new e-mail. She
would have gotten to all of it, but the last one she opened had an
urgent request that took the rest of her morning to complete. She’s
frustrated, however, that her inbox still has a lot of opened and
unopened mail. She knows the messages that were opened had
some importance (otherwise she would have thrown them away),
but she’ll need to go back and reread them in order to follow up.
Running off to her morning meeting, she discovers too late that
she received an action item she either missed or didn’t open yet.
Feeling foolish and unprepared, she promises herself that she’ll come
up with a better system for handling her e-mail.
Two weeks later (after an e-mail effectiveness workshop), Christine
has taken control of her inbox. First, she plans preset times in her
calendar to deal with e-mail.This allows her to work without
interruption and clear out her inbox each day. Using rules and
filters, Christine then identifies key indicators that would typically

6 © 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
 FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities

Rapid Performance M O D U L E
TM

distinguish between high-, normal-, and low-priority messages. She

uses her e-mail program’s importance scale to automatically
prioritize such messages.
Christine also changes the sorting options so she views items
ordered by priority, not by arrival time.
When she is ready to check her e-mail, Christine performs a quick
scan to make sure nothing important has slipped past her screening
rules. She then begins dealing with each individual message. (The
important ones are grouped together at the top of her inbox.)
Christine quickly accepts appointments, assigns tasks, and archives
data. If something is urgent, she takes time to complete it.
By creating a proactive strategy to screen, prioritize, and resolve her
e-mail, Christine’s productivity has gone up and her stress level has
gone down.

Applying the Skill

Begin the process of building a proactive e-mail strategy by doing
the following:
1. Ask yourself these questions:
• How is e-mail used in my job performance?
• How does this knowledge guide the decisions I will make
about screening and prioritizing?

© 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
7
Managing Minutiae—E-Mail

2. Complete the following table according to your familiarity with

the terms as they apply to your e-mail program (1 = none, 2 =
low, 3 = fair, 4= good,
5 = very good):
E-Mail Program My Familiarity With My Familiarity With How
Terminology or Procedure What This Means to Use This Feature
Sorting
Searching
Creating a local
folder or archive
Rules and filters
Views
Creating auto replies

3. Finish this sentence—I typically answer e-mail:

a. When it comes in.
b. At various times during the day when I’m not busy with
other projects.
c. In the evening after my scheduled workday has concluded.
d. First thing in the morning, and then I check it sporadically
throughout the day.
e. During a designated time I have scheduled in my calendar.
4. Complete the following table by breaking down the
distribution of e-mail you receive in your inbox as follows:
Percentage of E-Mail Goal
Low (optional) % %
Normal (important) % %
High (vital) % %

8 © 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
 FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities

Rapid Performance M O D U L E
TM

5. Determine common characteristics of the e-mail in your inbox

considered to be a low (optional) priority (true at least 80
percent of the time).
a. The e-mail generally originates from outside or inside the
company. (Choose one if it applies.)
b. Only my name appears in the “To” field (yes or no).
c. My name appears in the “CC” field as part of a large list
(yes or no).
d. A consistent name(s) or source appears in the “From” field
including (list): ___________________________________
e. There are consistent words in the “Subject” field such as
FYI, Auto Reply, etc. (list): __________________________
f. The messages have already been flagged as a low priority
(yes or no).
g. There are numerous “FWD: FWD: FWD” designators (yes
or no).
h. Others characteristics (list):__________________________
_______________________________________________
6. Determine the common characteristics of the e-mail in your
inbox considered to be a high (vital) priority (true at least 80
percent of the time).
a. The e-mail generally originates from outside or inside the
company. (Choose one if it applies.)
b. Only my name appears in the “To” field (yes or no).
c. My name appears in the “CC” field as part of a large list
(yes or no).
d. A consistent name(s) or source appears in the “From” field
including (list): ___________________________________
e. There are consistent words in the “Subject” field such as
FYI, Auto Reply, etc. (list): __________________________
© 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
9
Managing Minutiae—E-Mail

f. The messages have already been flagged as a low priority

(yes or no).
g. There are numerous “FWD: FWD: FWD” designators (yes
or no).
h. Others characteristics (list):__________________________
_______________________________________________
7. Determine the common characteristics of the e-mail you
always delete (true 99 percent of the time).
a. The e-mail generally originates from outside or inside the
company. (Choose one if it applies.)
b. Only my name appears in the “To” field (yes or no).
c. My name appears in the “CC” field as part of a large list
(yes or no).
d. A consistent name(s) or source appears in the “From” field
including (list): ___________________________________
e. There are consistent words in the “Subject” field such as
FYI, Auto Reply, etc. (list): __________________________
f. The messages have already been flagged as a low priority
(yes or no).
g. There are numerous “FWD: FWD: FWD” designators (yes
or no).
h. Others characteristics (list):__________________________
_______________________________________________
8. Identify which system you use to keep track of your daily tasks
and schedule:
• Franklin Planner
• Desktop calendar (Outlook, Lotus, Act, etc.)
• PDA
• Other
10 © 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
 FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities

Rapid Performance M O D U L E
TM

9. Identify the process you follow to transfer a task from your e-

mail inbox to your planning system (write process): _________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
10.Using your responses to the above items, devise a plan to
manage your e-mail. Complete the plan as follows:
• Use Item 1 to provide a framework for fine-tuning your e-
mail management strategy. Keep this framework in mind to
help customize and adapt your strategy to fit your specific
job requirements.
• Item 2 asked you to rate your familiarity with some of the
technical features of many e-mail programs. Use your e-mail
system’s help menu to look up and read about any of the
terms or procedures where you rated yourself as a 3 or lower.
• Take your answers from Items 3 through 7 to begin the
process of setting up an automated screening system using
the rules and filter capabilities of your e-mail program. Set a
goal to empty your inbox daily.
- Use the commonalities listed to construct logical rules
that can catch and prioritize messages as they come into
your inbox.
- Experiment with a variety of views and sorting criteria
to customize how your inbox displays your messages.
- Begin archiving messages on a local or network
directory while you become familiar with the advanced
searching features that facilitate item retrieval.

© 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited.
11
Managing Minutiae—E-Mail

• Items 8 and 9 focus on the transition of action items from

your e-mail system to your planning system. Having a
consistent method to accomplish this so your inbox does
not act as your task list will greatly improve your e-mail
effectiveness. Practice the art of touching your e-mail only
once, and then apply the FAD model: File, Act, or Delete.

Taking the Next Step

Test the new e-mail process for three weeks. Record the time spent
in your inbox each day. At the end of the third week, evaluate the
effectiveness of the process and revise it as needed.
Once you have fine-tuned your e-mail strategy, work with your
team or organization to create governing standards for e-mail
etiquette. Consider topics such as how to use acronyms, when to
reply to large lists, how to call out action items in subject lines, and
other areas that will help create standards for e-mail
communication.

12 © 2002 Franklin Covey Co. For personal use only. Duplication is prohibited. SKU #74065 RPM