Tame Your Inbox with the "Touch It Once" Rule
If your day, whether at home or in the office, begins with a battle against an inbox flooding with emails demanding your attention, you're not alone. Email management can be a daunting task, but there's a secret weapon that can transform your (dysfunctional?) relationship with your inbox: the Touch It Once rule. This is essentially another way of looking at Zero Inbox.
At its core, the Touch It Once rule is deceptively simple: whenever you open an email, you take action on it immediately, and then you're done with it. No more revisiting, procrastinating, or letting emails linger in your inbox like unwelcome guests. To master the rule, you simply need to commit to one of five actions for each email that lands in your inbox:
1. Delete or Archive
If the email serves no purpose or requires no action, just hit the Delete or Archive button. This is the digital equivalent of decluttering your workspace.
2. Reply Immediately
If you can answer an email within a minute or two, just do it. Clearing quick tasks right away prevents them from piling up. But buyer beware…make sure it really is no more than a couple of minutes—if it looks like it’s going to take longer, skip to step 4!
3. Delegate the Task
If the email is about something that someone else can handle, delegate it immediately. Forward it to the right colleague or team member, who will no doubt be grateful for the extra work… :)
4. Schedule It
If an email contains something that will take a bit more time but isn't an immediate task, put it in your task list (and maybe schedule time for it in your calendar, though you can do this later in your planning time). Now, this does mean that you are technically going to ‘touch’ it more than once, since you’ll be coming back to it later, but that’s different—at that point, it’ll be an actual task that you’ve set aside time for and need to complete, not an email that’s come in to distract you from whatever else you were doing.
5. File It for Later
If an email contains information you need but doesn't require immediate action, file it in a dedicated folder or label it for future reference.
With all our switching between home and office environments, the Touch It Once rule help makes sure no email gets left behind or forgotten. You're always on top of your inbox, no matter where you're working. We've all experienced that annoying feeling of having a cluttered inbox and worrying that' something important has slipped through the cracks. With Touch It Once, your inbox remains clean and organised and you can be sure you haven’t missed anything.
Also, by addressing emails promptly, you’re freeing up mental space. You're not constantly thinking about emails waiting for your attention, which allows you to focus more effectively on the things you were meant to be doing. By encouraging action over procrastination, you tackle emails immediately and prevent a buildup of email housekeeping tasks that can slow you down later.
Finally, to really make this approach work, allocate specific slots in your day for email management, especially if you get a lot of email. Avoid at all costs the temptation to constantly check your inbox, as this can seriously disrupt your workflow.