The Real Reason You Hate Your Inbox | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | All right, well, why don't we get technical?

00:00:02.200 | We haven't done a good old fashioned habit

00:00:05.480 | tune up in a while.

00:00:06.940 | For those who don't remember the habit tune up segment

00:00:10.280 | is one where I take a piece of advice

00:00:12.320 | that I have given before,

00:00:13.760 | and we just get into the weeds a little bit.

00:00:15.240 | So let's get into the weeds,

00:00:17.400 | get a little bit technical

00:00:18.360 | about some specific productivity advice.

00:00:20.460 | I have an email related habit to talk about

00:00:25.460 | in today's segment.

00:00:27.640 | It's an idea that I first introduced in my book,

00:00:30.320 | Deep Work, where I gave it the incredibly compelling

00:00:35.320 | and sexy name of process centric email.

00:00:39.980 | So what is process centric email?

00:00:43.100 | Let me step back first,

00:00:44.420 | my preamble to getting to the tactic here

00:00:47.620 | is pushing for a little bit more clarity

00:00:50.480 | on the question of what is it about email that we dislike?

00:00:55.560 | This is something I think a lot of people get wrong.

00:00:57.840 | I get a lot of messages from people that say,

00:00:59.280 | "Yeah, I love this idea of like digital minimalism

00:01:01.520 | because I hate how when I go into my email inbox,

00:01:05.980 | there's all of these newsletters.

00:01:08.580 | And I'm gonna simplify and unsubscribe

00:01:10.520 | from a lot of newsletters."

00:01:11.920 | All right, that's fine if you wanna do it.

00:01:14.680 | Too many newsletters is not your problem with email.

00:01:16.760 | Other people say, "Yeah, I have all of these announcements

00:01:20.360 | and notices and promotional emails from every company

00:01:24.080 | that I've ever bought something for.

00:01:26.280 | My employer sends out 17 announcements a day,

00:01:31.200 | new parking things, new programs.

00:01:33.080 | There's all these announcement emails

00:01:34.880 | they clutter up my inbox."

00:01:36.280 | Yeah, it's annoying, it's not the problem with email.

00:01:39.480 | Some people say, "Yeah, everyone is always shooting me

00:01:42.080 | these questions.

00:01:43.720 | Hey, what time is that meeting tomorrow?

00:01:44.840 | What about this?

00:01:45.680 | And that's annoying.

00:01:47.280 | Like, can't we just talk next time we see each other?"

00:01:50.360 | But short questions that can be answered,

00:01:53.400 | you know, two o'clock.

00:01:55.640 | The client's name is this, here's the link.

00:01:57.520 | That's also not the problem with email.

00:02:00.160 | If all of email was a combination of newsletters,

00:02:03.000 | announcements and promotions,

00:02:04.200 | and short questions that could be answered,

00:02:06.040 | we would have no problem with our inboxes.

00:02:09.640 | It really doesn't stress us out that much

00:02:11.680 | to see too many newsletters.

00:02:12.840 | You can just archive.

00:02:14.080 | It doesn't stress us out that much

00:02:16.400 | to see too many promotional announcements,

00:02:17.920 | just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right?

00:02:20.040 | You just delete and archive them.

00:02:21.240 | It's actually kind of fulfilling.

00:02:22.560 | It's easy to do.

00:02:23.960 | It feels like you're making progress.

00:02:25.240 | We don't get stressed out by questions we can answer

00:02:27.760 | immediately with a short response.

00:02:29.640 | It's very productive.

00:02:31.240 | Let me give you the answer to this.

00:02:32.080 | Let me give you the answer to this.

00:02:32.920 | Let me give you the answer to this.

00:02:33.740 | If that's all email was, 20 minutes twice a day

00:02:36.680 | would be on top of it.

00:02:37.720 | There'd be a little burst of productivity.

00:02:39.320 | It would be something that'd be positive.

00:02:41.440 | The real productivity poison that's frothing around

00:02:45.600 | in that email inbox is messages that initiate

00:02:50.520 | back and forth interaction.

00:02:52.440 | That is above all else, the source of almost every

00:02:58.840 | piece of cognitive distress that we feel from email.

00:03:04.640 | Not a newsletter, not an announcement,

00:03:06.120 | not what time is the meeting tomorrow.

00:03:08.240 | It's the email that says,

00:03:09.940 | "We should probably make a plan

00:03:12.320 | "for the client coming tomorrow."

00:03:14.320 | Or, "What are we gonna do to get this thing ready

00:03:18.920 | "for next Monday?"

00:03:20.460 | The message that is gonna begin back and forth,

00:03:24.000 | back and forth, like, "Well, when should we do that?

00:03:26.600 | "And what about next week?

00:03:27.440 | "Oh, next week doesn't work.

00:03:28.640 | "Let me CC in Jesse and ask him if he remembers

00:03:31.800 | "when this has..."

00:03:32.640 | Back and forth, back and forth.

00:03:34.080 | Unscheduled, ad hoc, back and forth,

00:03:36.200 | interactive conversation delivered through emails,

00:03:39.340 | working towards trying to figure out something

00:03:41.120 | or achieve some goal.

00:03:42.160 | That is the main productivity poison in our inboxes.

00:03:45.720 | Why?

00:03:46.780 | It brings with it two demands.

00:03:48.560 | One, that's more than anything else

00:03:51.620 | what keeps you coming back to your inbox again

00:03:53.300 | and again and again,

00:03:54.140 | because you have to service

00:03:55.460 | these back and forth conversations.

00:03:57.420 | If five messages have to get back and forth

00:03:59.460 | before we can get a resolution,

00:04:00.780 | and we need that resolution by the end of the day,

00:04:03.860 | I can't wait three hours for message number two,

00:04:06.280 | 'cause we have to fit in all five messages.

00:04:08.700 | So back and forth conversations

00:04:10.100 | require much more frequent inbox checking.

00:04:13.260 | 'Cause I gotta see when the latest message comes in

00:04:15.220 | so I can bounce it back.

00:04:16.460 | And you gotta see when that comes in

00:04:17.660 | so you can bounce it back to me.

00:04:18.560 | And I have to see that pretty soon after and bounce it back.

00:04:20.680 | We check our inboxes all the time,

00:04:22.000 | not because we know there's new newsletters in there,

00:04:24.960 | not because there's promotions from Levi's we wanna see,

00:04:27.720 | it's because we have back and forth conversations

00:04:29.440 | we have to service.

00:04:30.580 | The second reason why these are productivity poison

00:04:32.980 | is that these are the conversations

00:04:34.480 | that bring with it the dreaded ambiguity.

00:04:37.040 | I don't know how to answer this.

00:04:39.040 | It's where you get the,

00:04:41.920 | can you figure out how to fix this issue

00:04:46.400 | we have with the budget?

00:04:47.460 | And you're like, I don't know how to do that.

00:04:49.320 | And now I guess I can afford this as someone else

00:04:52.040 | or I'll do obligation hot potato

00:04:53.980 | and shoot off a question to someone else

00:04:55.860 | just to get it off my plate and wait for it to come back.

00:04:57.920 | I have to like talk to different people

00:04:59.560 | and see what they tell me.

00:05:00.560 | You've created, they create these major open loops

00:05:03.560 | in terms of our obligation storage systems.

00:05:05.800 | And it's a real source of stress and distress.

00:05:07.800 | If you feel anxious checking your inbox,

00:05:10.360 | going through your inbox,

00:05:11.360 | these are the type of messages that create that anxiety.

00:05:13.800 | They're like, oh my God, I don't know.

00:05:16.080 | I don't know how to fix the budget.

00:05:17.280 | I don't really know how this works.

00:05:18.120 | I don't even really know who I should talk to about this.

00:05:20.060 | Oh, I guess I'm gonna have to start sending messages

00:05:22.420 | and like kind of letting this thing unfold

00:05:24.020 | and keep checking this throughout the day.

00:05:25.920 | So those are the productivity poison.

00:05:28.980 | So if you wanna make your experience

00:05:30.980 | with your inbox better,

00:05:31.940 | it is these back and forth interactive ambiguous

00:05:34.660 | conversations that you have to tame.

00:05:36.820 | That is what process centric emailing is all about.

00:05:40.740 | The idea is simple.

00:05:42.540 | When you see a message arrive,

00:05:44.400 | that is initiating one of these long back and forths,

00:05:47.520 | your first entrance into this conversation,

00:05:51.540 | your first message into this conversation

00:05:53.260 | should include in it a proposal

00:05:57.380 | for the process by which this whole collaboration

00:06:01.180 | ending in the goal being achieved

00:06:02.540 | in this conversation is going to happen.

00:06:04.820 | You say how it's gonna happen.

00:06:06.660 | So it doesn't just default to like,

00:06:08.220 | let's just keep going back and forth.

00:06:09.900 | You declare this is how I think this should happen.

00:06:12.420 | Oh, we have to figure out what to do about this client.

00:06:15.440 | Okay, well, here's what I suggest.

00:06:18.080 | We have this meeting coming up on Wednesday.

00:06:20.720 | Let's add time to talk to that.

00:06:22.480 | I'm gonna, before we get to that meeting,

00:06:25.320 | talk to Susan to make sure that we understand

00:06:27.760 | the full whatever, the full process

00:06:31.320 | for what we need to do to onboard the client.

00:06:34.040 | We'll talk about this in the last five minutes

00:06:36.480 | of the meeting and make a plan going forward.

00:06:38.960 | Or you say, okay, here's what we need to do.

00:06:40.600 | You're right.

00:06:41.440 | We have to figure out when we're gonna meet.

00:06:44.080 | Here's what we'll do.

00:06:45.560 | I have listed here, whatever, 15 times.

00:06:49.680 | Jesse, you then highlight the times that work for you

00:06:53.440 | and then you forward it onto the third person

00:06:55.740 | and you select one of those that works

00:06:57.820 | and put that just into an invite and send it to all of us.

00:07:01.180 | And we don't even have to discuss anymore.

00:07:02.680 | What I'm talking about here is processes

00:07:04.160 | that gets the thing done.

00:07:06.160 | The thing that this conversation is gonna lead towards

00:07:08.880 | gets you to done without ambiguity

00:07:12.080 | and without having to just wait for messages to arrive

00:07:14.560 | and respond to them and go back and forth.

00:07:16.660 | Process-centric emailing is a little bit stilted.

00:07:20.600 | It's not very casual.

00:07:23.700 | So typically the people who use this

00:07:25.320 | will have a casual message with emoticons

00:07:28.400 | and all the other stuff,

00:07:29.560 | but then have the pretty detailed thing below.

00:07:32.400 | You can blame it on me.

00:07:34.160 | So sorry for the formality.

00:07:35.240 | I've been listening to much Cal Newport, but it works.

00:07:39.200 | And it takes a little bit more time up front

00:07:40.920 | because you have to figure out,

00:07:41.840 | what's the right way to get to done?

00:07:45.040 | What's the right way to get the done here?

00:07:47.800 | And you gotta think it through

00:07:49.240 | and you gotta explain it to people

00:07:50.600 | and you might have some extra work to do to set it up.

00:07:52.600 | Here's the Google doc, here's the doodle,

00:07:54.840 | here's how it's gonna unfold.

00:07:56.440 | I've set up an office hours.

00:07:58.440 | It takes more work,

00:07:59.640 | but it is almost always worth spending 10 or 15 more minutes

00:08:02.800 | at the beginning of an exchange

00:08:04.480 | than it is to have 10 or 15 messages you have to respond to.

00:08:07.540 | 10 or 15 minutes right now

00:08:09.920 | takes away 10 or 15 minutes from your day,

00:08:11.840 | but 10 to 15 messages,

00:08:13.640 | each of which is requiring five inbox checks

00:08:16.120 | while you wait for it,

00:08:18.080 | that's gonna be 50 to 75 inbox checks over the next few days

00:08:22.400 | which is way more damaging

00:08:23.720 | than you adding 10 minutes right now to what you're doing.

00:08:27.000 | So I'm a big believer in process-centric emailing.

00:08:29.360 | And of course, if you find yourself,

00:08:31.880 | it's a bonus,

00:08:32.760 | proposing the same process again and again

00:08:35.400 | because the same type of work happens again and again,

00:08:38.200 | then you can just codify that.

00:08:39.660 | You know what?

00:08:40.700 | We do this client onboarding all the time.

00:08:42.940 | Why don't we all just agree this is how we do it?

00:08:45.240 | And so you don't even have to write out

00:08:46.480 | the whole process every time.

00:08:47.460 | So it's also a good way to unearth

00:08:49.820 | or make legible repeated work and get good processes in place

00:08:53.740 | so just remember that.

00:08:54.580 | Ongoing interactive conversations,

00:08:56.520 | that is the thing that kills us in our inbox.

00:08:58.320 | That's the thing you should care about.

00:08:59.960 | That is the thing you should be willing to do

00:09:02.200 | almost anything to vanquish.

00:09:05.560 | It really is productivity poison.

00:09:07.280 | (upbeat music)

00:09:11.100 | (upbeat music)

The Real Reason You Hate Your Inbox | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

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