I’ve been attempting to stick with the less-email approach for the last two weeks and it’s been generally helpful. However, I’ve had to violate the number of times I check email and ran into some surprises. I’m also not sure whether it’s a good idea to restrict yourself in certain circumstances or just to go with the spirit of the idea. Anyhow, here are some realizations after checking email mostly-twice during the work day for a couple weeks.

Lesson 1: Email is always a distraction. If you’re working on something it’s never a good idea to check your email and get distracted.

Challenge: Some tasks merit fast-paced email exchange or require a response via email. Sometimes an email message in the morning relates to an appointment in the afternoon. But looking for one email typically results in receiving more than you wanted.

When I initially communicate with a prospect or a client, I want to impress them with responsiveness…and I feel I can achieve that (to some degree) with quick email back-and-forth. I’m also not yet in a position to explain to them my new “philosophy of email” and thus why our email exchange may take a while. And, as for project-related emails, as deadlines are coming I feel that it’s of crucial importance that I receive them.

Possible Solutions:

1. OUT OF OFFICE RESPONSE: I could, as Tim Ferriss suggested, create an “Out of Office Response” that tells people my email strategy. That would solve the “appointment confirmation” problem but it could still weird-out a new prospect and I’m not sure how well it’d help in a project-based situation–the sender might not be aware of the significance of their input into my work.
2. COMMUNICATION: For starters, telling people about your process is a good thing. Especially your co-workers. Right now I’ve only told a few people about my approach because I wasn’t sure that I was going to stick with it. But now I realize that checking email twice (or at least not until around lunchtime) is magnificently liberating (I actually get stuff done in the morning!)…and I’m going to tell a lot of coworkers and clients. Though it doesn’t solve the “new clients” problem, it’ll resolve 80% of the communications issues, as those are with the same small group.
3. FUDGING WITH DISCIPLINE: There are going to be times when you need to check your email. Just try not to pay attention to anything else when you’re looking for that one message.
4. THE IMPORTANT DUDE: Have someone else check your email (frequently) who is familiar with your process. If a really important message comes in (they’d have to fully understand what really important means!) then they’d let you know. I look forward to that day…

Lesson 2: Breaking the system for seemingly logical reasons is risky.

Challenge: It seems that when you’re in transit or in between tasks that email won’t take away from something else and thus it’d be perfectly fine to check it now. However, when you do check your email you may be surprised by something that changes your mood or makes you realize you really had to do something. Unfortunately when we’re between things we don’t have the luxury to respond to pressing or emotional issues.

This week I was working with a client in a conference room and things were moving very slowly–they hadn’t prepared for the meeting and had to do a few things on their laptops before we could actually get to work. So I figured, why not check my email?

In Outlook I found a message about a project I’d recently won with a major client, though they had placed all of the Terms and Conditions into their own language. They had added a “Work for Hire” clause, indicating that our training material was “Work For Hire” and, as such, that they could rebrand and reuse it. Now I’m cool with people having issues with some of my terms, and I recognize that the contracting officer probably just plopped our contract into his template which already had that clause…but it still royally irked me. When I communicated (somewhat strongly) with the CO about why our work was not Work for Hire they just removed the clause without a question (our material is usually treated like a book–you get a certain number of copies)…but, again, it really changed my mood and I felt the need to respond then and there.

This kind of stuff happens all the time when we check our email: things surprise us and change our mode of thought.

Possible Solutions:

1. BE PRODUCTIVE NOT RISKY: The goal of checking email when you have free time is to use that time wisely. So be wise–have a book or other task ready for you. Maybe file some things, clean up, work on a task that’s not super thought intensive but needs to get done. But whatever it is, don’t check your email because there will often be surprises that change your current state.
2. CREATE A BARRIER: Don’t turn on automatic download of email messages in any of your portable devices. Put a password on your email application. Don’t carry your cellphone when you go into a client’s. Whatever it is that makes it just a little more difficult to check your email–that’ll make it much less likely to happen.

I have many more lessons to share and some specific practices I’ve tried…but at 9:30am I’d really best be getting some work done. Stay tuned…and don’t check your email.

Filed under: 4-Hour Workweek, Business, Email, Outlook, Productivity
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We should receive all forms of mail once per day.

Can you imagine a world where the mailman would show up a few times per day whenever s/he felt like it? Where you could keep checking your mailbox and often find new things? Where your Sunday house cleaning could be interrupted multiple times by bills and packages and letters. Imagine that: snail mail as unpredictable with items arriving at all times of the day.

Oh wait, that’s email. And that’s what’s wrong with it.

The Postal Service (USPS, not the band) got it right–interruptions should not come throughout the day unwelcome; they should come once, and as predictably as possible. If we all were to check our email less often, we’d all be a little more sane and a lot more productive.

Today is the first day I’ve checked my email (both work and personal) twice: once just before lunch and once at 4:00. I haven’t decided yet how to treat the evenings…but I will say that today’s been one of the most productive days I’ve ever had…but let me qualify that, I didn’t have a single deadline today, nor do I tomorrow or Friday or Monday. I’ve gotten more done in a day before, but never with so few responsibilities breathing down my neck.

My motivation for this comes from a number of sources. First, Timothy Ferriss’ prescriptive and challenging new book, The 4-Hour Workweek explains the many merits of checking email less and offers a series of approaches for making you successful with it. Second, I needed it: the more people and projects I’m working with, the more communication it mandates with clients and employees. This sort of project management wasn’t the only thing I was doing, but it came up so many times during the day that it was virtually impossible to focus on the real stuff–the projects that require time and focus (and really where my energy should be).

I don’t know that I can keep up this habit, and I haven’t nailed down my exact approach yet (for example, I’d like to be able to send email even if I’m not checking it and how to do that’s not super easy when using Offline Mode on an Exchange server). I also am not sure if I’m going to clear my inbox to zero and rely much more heavily on my calendar as I’ve been trying. All I know is that I was focused all day today and I pushed out a lot of projects. And, at two times during the day, I managed to read and reply to all my emails–batching, as the GTD folks would say. Strangely in a mere 25 minutes I went through 30 emails and had a completely empty inbox.

I’m going to keep writing about this. I could tell you more about my approach but I need to see if I can make it stick first. Thank you, Tim Ferriss and Merlin Mann, this stuff can really work. It’s not about working faster…it’s about giving yourself time to focus when you really need it.

Filed under: 4-Hour Workweek, Business, Email, Outlook, Productivity, Technology
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I used to hear people talk about cash flow as being “the biggest challenge” for small businesses. I always understood that billing in March might translate to payment in May or June and that, depending on the amount due, borrowing might be necessary. But a lot of things in the last year have offered a better understanding of cash flow:

• The better organized your books and reporting, the more you realize that cash flow is an issue
• Positive cash flow can be much worse than negative cash flow
• Smaller revenue from many clients may be easier to stabilize, but it’s much less predictable and more time-consuming to manage. And big checks are a whole different story.

The better organized your books, the more you realize that cash is an issue

When invoices go out, checks will start to come in. But not all of them. We’ve always kept pretty organized books, but this year my books have become somewhat of a work of art. I want to grow SET Consulting and strengthening SET’s reporting capabilities has seriously improved my picture of what’s going on . With regard to cash flow especially, I realize much more lucidly what to expect, and when a phone call or letter is in order. Sadly I realize that my “wonderful clients” can be a royal pain.

Positive cash flow can be much worse than negative cash flow

The concept of cash flow is essentially that the money in your pocket is not an accurate picture of your financial condition. This is especially important to realize when you have a lot of money.

In the past, the amount of money I perceived as having was in line with the transactions I’d entered in QuickBooks–so I always felt pretty good that I was basing my ideas off the assumption that all the checks I’d written had been cashed (when they hadn’t yet). But that’s such a small part of the story.

You may have $50k in the bank. Payroll may only be $10k. But what about the other expenses each month? What about the projects that are being worked on right now but the contractors? What about quarterly taxes? How long will it be before you’ve got $10k? Or 0?

If you’re smart, you know your monthly burn (when I found out mine I was not particularly happy…though it did convince me that a few nice meals really didn’t make a difference). But the question is how much do you pay attention to it, while factoring in your A/R aging, when you’ve got a bunch of money in the bank?

When cash flow is not so hot, you pay closer attention to what’s going on in your business. But you need to pay just as much attention when things seem good because cash comes in waves…and cash goes away as quickly as it comes onto the scene.

Smaller revenue from many clients may be easier to stabilize, but it’s much less predictable and more time-consuming to manage. And big checks are a whole different story.

The more variables and the bigger the check the more things get to be a pain. When we were receiving a few small checks per month, we didn’t have as much trouble collecting. But everything gets to be more of a pain when there are more clients and bigger checks. Of course this isn’t always the case, but more variables never really makes anything easier. And cash flow is harder to predict when there are more bits and pieces involved.

Filed under: Business
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