From declaring inbox bankruptcy to hiring
full-time handlers, business leaders have unique ways of managing their email
deluge
When you receive almost 150 work emails every
day, your inbox can quickly become the bane of your existence. That suffering
increases exponentially when you're the leader of a company. So, how do top
leaders like Eric Schmidt and Tim Cook manage their overwhelming inbox flux?
Here's how:
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos forwards pressing
emails with one added character
When a
customer emails Bezos to complain about something Amazon-related, Bezos often
forwards the message to the appropriate person at the company, adding just one
character: “?“ “When Amazon employees get a Bezos question mark email, they
react as though they've discovered a ticking bomb,“ Businessweek reported.
They've typically got a few hours to solve whatever issue the CEO has flagged
and prepare an explanation that is reviewed by a succession of managers before
it reaches Bezos.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reads most of his 700-plus
emails
The CEO who
wakes up at 3:45 am each day, said during an interview with ABC that he
receives somewhere between 700 and 800 emails a day.“And I read the majority of
those ... Every day, every day. I'm a workaholic.“
Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington
has three email no-nos
Huffington
has three simple rules for email: O No emails for half an hour before bed O No
rushing to emails as soon as she O No rushing to
emails as soon as she wakes O
No emails while she is with her children Huffington wrote in her book, Thrive.
“...being connected in a shallow way to the entire world can prevent us from
being deeply connected to those closest to us -including ourselves.“
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh employs a full-time
team of email ninjas
In a
fascinating Quora thread about CEO email habits, Michael Chen, a responder who
once met Hsieh, wrote that the Zappos CEO told him he had a team of four or
five full-time email handlers. “Fun fact, I think their official titles are
email ninja,“ Chen said.
Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson has a system for
remembering contacts
The online
marketplace CEO reportedly believes in having a system for everything, no
matter what it is.Whenever he meets someone new, he adds his contact
information to his address book, and notes what they discussed. That way,
whenever he emails someone, he has a direct reference of the earlier meeting(s)
and moves on to the task.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is blessed
with too few emails to stress about inbox zero
Gates
reportedly received between 40 and 50 emails a day only. “So you process some
and get back to others at night. You make sure if you put something off you get
back to it later,“ he explained.
Hootsuite CEO and founder Ryan Holmes goes
for email broke
When
overwhelmed with his inbox Holmes likes to “declare inbox bankruptcy“ and
delete everything so he can start fresh. He recommends only doing this once
every few years, and practitioners should add a disclaimer message to their
email signature after deleting unread mails.
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt
responds quickly to every email
In his book
How Google Works, the former Google CEO wrote, “Most of the best -and busiest
-people we know act quickly on their emails, not just to us or to a select few
senders, but to everyone.“
Even if the
answer is a simple “got it“, Schmidt says being responsive establishes a
positive communication loop and a culture focused on merit .
Source | Economic
Times | 12 June 2015
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