Digital @ Leadership Network

more tips to empty your inbox

Had a little exercise here at our Leadership Network staff meeting. The question posed, "how do you keep your email inbox empty?" We had a enthralling conversation about the topic, and even a few dissenting voices that don't care to keep an empty inbox. (Well, that's one way to do it.)

Here's the list we came up with; we were looking for 10, we kinda ran out of time at #5:

• sort by sender
• create side folders
• Mike Hyatt's blog tips ->
  "Yes, You Can Stay on Top of Email"
• sort of date (ascending)
• after you reply, delete or file
• use junk mail filter

Personally, I've been using the process outlined in Total Workday Control, which is loosely based on Getting Things Done. There's also a great blog series titled Inbox Zero that comes with a 1-hour video describing that process -- especially great for those of you who'd prefer to watch a video instead of reading.

How do you keep your inbox empty?

-- DJ CHUANG, Leadership Community Director at Leadership Network

Pastors - You Do Not Serve Your Email

Since Christian leaders, especially pastors, are often "wired" for serving others, it's not really a surprise that online communication technologies can sometimes trick us, tempting us to serve them rather than serving us.

No matter which technologies you and your staff elect to use, from Google docs to Yammer, we can probably all agree, the most common and far-reaching culprit in our technological clutter is our out of control email.

Contrary to what many of our tech-savvy congregation members might think, it's often pastors who have the least time to learn basic email processing techniques.  And to aggravate the condition, the more staff support, the more likely we may be to handing off the basics, creating a knowledge & training gap.  Pastors can easily end up as underdogs when it comes to out muscling the email avalanche.

Mastering your email is absolutely essential for freeing your time for other things.  Furthermore, several fundamental principles provide a simple way to get ahead of your inbox and stay "in control" of your email.

Whether you subscribe to Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero style or some other form of ordered system, you will never like your computer the way you could with your email lording over you.

Michael Hyatt, President & CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, has blogged extensively on email techniques on his blog From Where I Sit (see: Yes, You Can Stay on Top of Email).  He processes about 100 emails an hour and still has ample time to Twitter.  Think that's not possible?

Check out some of his system (like not touching the mouse!)....

1. Empty your inbox everyday.
2. Don’t get bogged down, keep moving.
   • Do—take action on the task now. I follow David Allen’s two-minute rule. If I can do what is being requested in less than two minutes, I do it immediately. This gets stuff off your to-do list before it ever gets on it. This has the added advantage of making you look responsive.
   • Delegate—pass the task along to someone else. I’m not talking about “passing the buck.” But oftentimes someone else is better equipped to fulfill the sender’s request. Dawson Trotman once said, “I purposed never to do anything others could or would do when there was so much of importance to be done that others could or would not do.” In other words, try to focus on where you add value and offload everything else.
   • Defer—consciously decide you will do the task later. This only applies to asks you cannot complete in two minutes or less or can’t delegate to someone else. You can either add the task to your to-do list or schedule an appointment with yourself to complete it. Fortunately, in Entourage, I convert an email message to a task or an event (i.e., appointment) with a single keystroke.
   • Delete—determine if you might need the information later. If not, delete it. My own assumption is that if it’s really important, someone, somewhere else in the world, has a copy of it.
   • File—if you think you might need the information, file it. But do not create an elaborate set of file folders. This is the single most important piece of advice I can give you. Just file everything in one folder called “Processed Mail.” If it is more complicated than this, it will lead to procrastination. Trust me on this. You will have to decide, Should I file this under Tami because it is from her or under Max because it is about him? And then what happens if the email covers more than one subject? Do you make copies of the email and put one copy under each folder? Things can get complicated fast.Forget all of that. File your email in one folder and let your email or system software (e.g., “Spotlight”) find it when you need it. The search capabilities of almost every modern email program will enable you to put your hands on any message whenever it is necessary. It may take you a few minutes longer to find the message using this method, but this is offset by the hours you waste trying to figure out how to file your messages.
3. Use keyboard shortcuts and avoid the mouse.
4. Let email rules filter the low-priority stuff.

Like Michael, I also have a Bacn folder for email newsletters, receipts, and other automatically-generated reading material including almost every notice I get from Facebook!  “Spam” is unsolicited bulk email.  “Bacn” is solicited bulk email.  This simple trick (thank you Tony Steward) gives me control over incoming and thus saves me valuable processing steps (read: time).

-- Cynthia Ware, The Digital Sanctuary

Gmail hacks

After Digital readers told me Gmail's spam filters are better than any Outlook plugin, I've given Gmail a more serious look - I'm actually using it to check some of my Pop mail accounts (and not just as a simple non-work-related email address for personal use)

I'm still on Outlook for my main email, and I wouldn't recommend Gmail to replace Outlook for a small business or church.  My biggest pet peeve is that sending mail from a Pop account through gmail makes the recipient see the very unprofessional "From you@gmail.com on on behalf of you@otherdomain.com"

But there are some really cool things you can do with Gmail.  Here's a list of Gmail hacks.  I haven't used most of these advanced plugins and scripts.  But a couple that seem really cool are:

7) Toggling between different Gmail accounts:

21) Using Gmail like an external (backup) hard drive on your desktop

26) Creating a podcast from your Gmail messages to listen to your email

Pretty advanced stuff.  But lots of creative hacks that someone out there might find useful!

Tech Tuesday: how to handle email overload

The thing about Tuesdays is that it comes every 7 days. Same thing with Sundays. And, when it comes to email, it comes every day, all the time, 24/7.

So, this week's feature question is this:

How do you handle email overload?

I used to think I could handle it, but who am I kidding. Here are some of the things I do in my Microsoft Outlook:

• setting Outlook to check email less than 4 times an hour, and turn off email pop-up alerts & beeps
• reading emails only once and act on it: file it into a folder for info to keep, reply to it, or flag it for later response or action
• flagging an email with an "Add reminder" and enter a "Due by" date/time when I want to respond later and don't want to forget it

I know there are other great tips, like Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero 1-hour video presentation. (Merlin is a productivity guru and founder of 43 Folders blog.)

There are even books written on this subject, like The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You (Mike Song, Vicki Halsey, Tim Burress) and Surviving Information Overload: The Clear, Practical Guide to Help You Stay on Top of What You Need to Know (Kevin A. Miller).

Add a comment below. And, to have your tech question featured in a future Tech Tuesday, email them in to me anytime.

-- DJ Chuang, Director of Digital Initiatives & more, Leadership Network

how to write clear emails

Hat tip to PastorHacks for linking to this: 7 Rules for Communicating Clearly and Concisely in Email from Web Worker Daily --

1. Use the minimum amount of sentences.
2. State what you want right away.
3. Write about only one thing.
4. Leave out the humor and emotions.
5. Use “If … then” statements.
6. Review for ambiguity, clarity.
7. Revise for conciseness.

Read the full article to see how you can write clear and concise emails that are actionable and gets right down to business. (I don't think these rules apply when you're emailing to get into a conversation where you'd actually unpack thoughts in detail.)

When To Abandon the Digital

Last week I commented on ways in which leaders can work their email so that it doesn't inordinately dominate their time. 

But there are reasons beyond time constraints when email should be abandoned. 

Email can be intoxicatingly easy to use.  It's so convenient and fast.  Because it's unilateral, one can dispense with the need for any "ramp up" conversation or to wait for the other to acknowledge you or to  respond.  You decide to communicate, you do so, and then you're done.   Because of email's ease of use, it is - however - easy to overly depend on email. 

And that's a problem because email is a relatively narrow channel of communication.  Its sensory bandwidth is limited to the viewing of lexical symbols and our visceral and intellectual response in apprehension.  We do not catch the tone of voice.  We do not view the critical gesticulation or the subtle shift in body language.  All we see is text.  Because the path of communication is relatively thin, misunderstanding is far easier than when speaking face-to-face or even by phone.

Accordingly, I suggest that email be abandoned in a particular conversation under at least three circumstances. 

1) If I email something and I'm asked for a clarification, I will generally respond with one emailed clarification.  If I get more questions, I will abandon email and either walk down the hall or pick up the phone.  At that point I conclude that the communication need that I and my associate have has exceeded the constraints of the email communication channel.  We need a wider bandwidth and so I find that better channel.  I suggest that following this simple rule will prevent a significant degree of frustration and confusion.

2) If an email conversation becomes heated or emotional, I suggest that email immediately be abandoned and the conversation continued either face-to-face, if possible, or over the phone.  At that point those communicating need the widest available  channel to communicate as perfectly as possible so that the emotions of the conversation can be adequately communicated and responded to.   Mere text is no longer sufficient.  This recommendation is reflective of the conflict resolution principal of leaning into the conflict.

3) Don't compose and email something when you're mad.  Actually, that might be half right.  It might be helpful to write something while you're mad but then not send it (at all or edited) until you've calmed down.  Doris Kearns Goodwin in her masterful book about Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet - Team of Rivals - reported that the 16th president had a habit of writing letters when he was angry and then setting them aside for a time when he'd calmed down.  Sometimes he never sent such letters. 

Clearly, email is a great tool of communication for a multiplicity of circumstances.  But we must remember that it is not for all situations. 

Taming the Email Beast

Many of us can resonate with the brilliant New Yorker writer and author Malcolm Gladwell when he writes,

"I remember when I first got email, back in the mid 1990's.  I would rush home with great anticipation and dial in on my 4400-baud modem and I would have … four messages from four very good friends.  And what would I do? I would immediately compose long, elegant responses.  Now, of course, I get up in the morning and go to my computer and I have sixty-four messages, and the anticipation I once felt has been replaced by dread" (The Tipping Point, p. 274).

Our dread is precipitated by the fact that, if we let it, e-mail could put us in a state of constant responsiveness.

When Beth and I were expecting our third daughter a few years ago, we decided that she would quit her part-time job and stay home to care for our girls.  But we needed her income and so, as I told one of our pastors one day over lunch, I would need to begin doing some consulting work to supplement our income.  "Why don't you work for us?" he asked.  I was already very involved in service in our church and so I asked, "So…. I'll keep doing what I'm doing now except … you'll pay me?"  "Sure," he replied.  And so within 48 hours I was on staff!  ('Course, I did end up doing a bit more work for the church that I had been doing!) 

Because I was part-time, we decided that I would mostly work from home.  I soon realized that this was a strategic advantage. 

By not having an office on our church's campus, I was put into a position where I didn't have to deal with the innumerable spontaneous daily interruptions with which many, many pastors have to deal.  I didn't have to move chairs around, hear about a staffer's very busy weekend, get pulled into an impromptu strategy meeting about this coming Sunday's morning service, or get recruited to provide a voiceover for the drama troupe's upcoming skit.  While someone might decide to reach out to ask me to help with any of these tasks, just the fact that I wasn't around meant 1) that they were less likely to do so and 2) that they might be more likely to consider if the requested task fell within my assigned job duties. 

Because I worked off-site, I soon came to realized that I was more able to actively impose my own agenda on my work day rather than passively responding to everyone else's agenda. 

Similarly, with email, it's very easy to live in a world where you're constantly responding to everyone else's agenda.

But there's a very simple solution:  Don't stay in email all day.

There is a cottage industry of time management books, seminars, tools, etc, with several works providing specific focus on how email can be enfolded into an overall time management .  But I'd like to suggest that as far as reigning in your email time goes, the simple advice of intentionally limiting the amount of time you spend in your email client could be the single best time management decision that you make. 

Staying in email all day is just like standing at the door of your busy office all day and responding to whatever and whoever comes to your attention.  When you are checking email, every email is urgent but not every email is important.  Staying in email all day subjects you to urgency's tyranny by robbing you of the ability to prioritize.  When you limit the amount of time you spend in email, you begin to tame the beast. 

While everyone will need to establish their own guidelines, here are a couple of suggestions for how you might proceed:

Every morning, boot up your computer and give yourself 40 minutes to review all emails you have left over since yesterday and all your new emails.  Prioritize those that must be responded to immediately and do so.  Next decide which emails need a response by the end of the day but also require you to do some research or work before you can respond.  Schedule the time that you need to do that and then respond to those emails as you can.  Force yourself to stop emailing after 40 minutes.  Then attend to other work items until around lunchtime when you'll dive back into email for 30 minutes.  And then toward the end of the day, schedule another 40 mins to dispatch some emails.  But be sure to leave yourself 30 minutes before you plan to leave so that you can adequately look over your next day's activities and plan your workflow.  Yes, of course there will be days when you'll get an email bomb that will dominate your entire day, but let those be exceptions and not the rule. 

Some of you have workflows where this might not work very well because a significant portion of your job simply is responsive and you are the legitimate go-to person for a number of folks within your organization.  If that's the case you might consider flipping this approach.  Stay in email all day, except schedule 90 minutes in the AM and again in the PM when you'll jump out of email and attack your short-term priority items (e.g. the performance review due tomorrow) and your long-term important activities (e.g. writing the job description for a new FTE you wish to convince the elders to hire).

If these time lengths don't work, change them until they do. 

Finally, there are days – maybe even weeks - when neither of these solution-sets will work.  That was the case recently when a talented and productive member of my staff had taken on a number of extra responsibilities and became legitimately overwhelmed.  My advice to her?  "Let's pretend you're on vacation."  I directed her to change her outbound voice mail and out-of-office email announcements that she was working on a special project, that she would respond when she could, but that if anyone had an urgent item, they could contact me.  Folks could then self-prioritize their requests and, if they really did see a request as urgent, they could contact me and I could either dispatch the item myself, pass it on to my employee as truly needing her short-term attention, or repurpose the item to another member of my staff. 

There is, in my opinion, no one omnicompetent system that will handle every circumstance or exigency.  I see crafting efficient work flows for each individual as much art as science.  Nevertheless, we are commanded to be circumspect about our use of time (Eph. 5:16) and a decision to be glued to email all day can be a passive decision to allow everyone else to set our priorities for us. 

Online Technologies & the New World Order

Online technologies are changing our world and have ramifications for everything from business to spirituality. Ongoing social research evaluating our use of the Internet indicates that online communications foster and facilitate the building of new social structures and circles.   From email and texting, to chat rooms, social bookmarking sites, web forums, blogs, wikis, and metaverses like Second Life, early adopters, particularly those under 30, are well-versed in online social culture.  The evolving new social order has been described as being decentralized, diverse, liquid, and more global than any we've seen in previous cultures.

Furthermore, the new social structures associated with online media spaces display new value systems.  Walled-garden proprietary hierarchies are giving way. Top-down traditional CEO-dominated leadership models are held in suspicion.  New values are geared towards participation, flexible open networks and communication processes that are transparent and dynamically interactive. 

In the book The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, author James Surowiecki explores the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group.  Similarly, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams describes a new economy born out of peering, sharing and crowdsourcing. Online communication means provide a way for there to be unlimited resources for conversation, collaboration, contribution and community. It is in such an environment that teamwork operating via group participation becomes the most accepted order. 

In many situations, there are advantages inherent in the new social order.  The Internet as a platform allows individuals to inform / teach themselves, to discuss / debate issues and policies, to mobilize / organize resources and volunteers.  The web allows garage start-ups to challenge major corporations and galvanizes grassroots movements into global causes.  The overthrow of bureaucracy will most certainly transform social institutions.  Collaboration in science and medicine will likely produce spectacular results. 

Problems arise, however, when such concepts are applied to Christians and to our leadership of the Church.  If we use the new media paradigms as our only organizational models, I think we miss critical biblical patterns.  Obtaining information / knowledge and employing wisdom are two different things. The aggregation of information (learning) is not to be confused with the application of wisdom, which comes from God.  In fact, the two are sometimes opposed.   Since we are members of the Body of Christ, we can embrace the value of our individuality within a group but teamwork / collaboration is not the same as group authority or rule.

The Kingdom of God is built on dominion hierarchies.  In fact, a kingdom is so called because of the authority flow from the rulership of it's King. The scriptures constantly reveal God's designed order and the channels by which His authority operates.  Man has been given delegated authority to have dominion over the earth.  Numerous scriptures come to mind about authority, headship, rulership, as well as examples of Priests, Prophets, Kings, etc. 

In the Old Testament, Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. Exodus 18:25  And in contrast, the book of Judges states, In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25).   Likewise, the New Testament is loaded with additional descriptions of leadership hierarchies.   We know the angels are ranked, as are the demons (Ephesians 6:12). There is headship and family order outlined in both earthly marriage and the in Church (in its spiritual union with Christ). 

All this to say, I still think there is a lot to evaluate and explore about the value systems evolving out of new communication models.   As a new media enthusiast I'm all for utilizing technology to accomplish Kingdom business.   Online technologies support the unleashing of human creativity, ideas and inspirations. But, flesh cannot inherit the Kingdom.  And our mandate is to penetrate worldly mindsets with Kingdom values.  As Christian leaders, I'm wondering if you are evaluating / exploring / pondering these questions like I am? 

How to set up Google Apps for Your Nonprofit Domain

I am working on a new web site for the Christian Montessori school my daughter attends. They are a new 501c3 organization and are setting up their email for the first time. Since the wonderful people who run the school are not geeks, I am trying to make email and the like as easy as possible.

I am a web designer NOT an IT specialist. I do not do this sort of stuff normally, so I thought I would share my experience with you, so IT geeks feel free to add your input.

Google Apps for your Domain

Google extends its free offer to educational institutions to registered nonprofits. Basically, your nonprofit can use Google's office applications and Gmail for free. The reason this makes life easier for most nonprofits is that:

1. Managing all your organizations email accounts is web based and maintained by Google
2. Users can send and receive email via Gmail that is available to them anywhere
3. Gmail virtually eliminates the need to put storage restrictions on email accounts
4. Gmail makes spam manageable without  being complicated

To start this process you must have:

1. Your 9-digit Federal Employee ID Number
2. Administrative control over your domain's DNS (In my case, this is the account information for Godaddy and Dreamhost.)

Google does a nice job leading you through the process and the control panel is nice enough. You need some geek in you and the freedom to feel like you can make a mistake. Since this is the first time I have done this, I was had this freedom because there where no active emails or even a working domain.

Google has a great document outlining the Google service activation process for nonprofit webmasters. Or you can hire a service to help you.

If you are doing this to an existing domain, I would love to get your feedback and add it to this article. Tip: Google explains how to change your MX Record to prevent losing emails in the process.

Verify your ownership of the domain

Google requires you to verify that you own the domain you are asking them to essentially host. You can do this either through changing a CNAME record or uploading an HTML file. I chose to upload a html file which was fast and simple. Warning: I was a bit confused that I did not get immediate feedback as to whether Google verified my domain or not.

Set up your account

Start here with Google's instructions.

First thing to note is the Email is NOT initially activated. You need to activate the email (by making changes to MX Record for your domain). Google does a great job giving you a step by step instructions for many popular of web hosts. I followed how to change the MX Record for Dreamhost.

You can set up your email accounts one by one or bulk upload the information.

You can then configure your preferences for the Start page and other Google applications (i.e. chat or Calendar). In our case, I disabled the Web Page creator to limit confusion. We will be using Expression Engine to power the web site and deliver targeted email communications.

You can also add your own logo and do other nice custom things.

Using the Start page

The reason I'm using this service from Google is that I can send my client simple instructions on how to get their mail. Basically, I just send them to the Hand In Hand start page.

This was a quick 5 minute customization of the start page. Basically, I will lock the left column and reserve it for email, calendar and eventually news specifically for teachers and staff. From here, my client will be able to check their email and calendar. Eventually, we will add documents and spreadsheets. But I do not want to overwhelm of complicate this process right now.

By Tim Bednar, founder Plaid
Software for people focused on ministry not software

Life in the txt lane, part 2

In my previous entry about Life in the txt lane, I suggested a way to use SMS text-messaging to cell phone recipients as a means for broadcast communication. This idea sparked from a conversation with Dave Browning of Christ the King Community Church, who relayed to me that internet access is challenging in Africa, but everyone has a cell phone. So, would it possible to use text-messaging to communicate and to train up leaders?

Yes! There are some technology pieces in place that could be put together to do this. Did you know that (almost?) every cell phone has an email address? In this Wikipedia entry titled, Send Text Messages by Email , it lists the email address format of cell phones from major U.S. providers:

• AT&T = number@txt.att.net
• Sprint = number@messaging.sprintpcs.com
• Nextel = number@page.nextel.com
• T-Mobile = number@tmomail.net
• Verizon = number@vtext.com

So the idea is to use an email list server (used to send out email newsletters) that provides a simple way to get subscribed and unsubscribed, and invite people to enter their cell phone's email address (or use a pull-down selection menu with mobile providers) to get connected. Then the email list can be used to send out a short email up to 140 characters, like an announcement, a Bible passage, a quote, or as much as you can creatively cram in! (In some ways, Twitter makes this kind of a thing possible.)

I know, this is an "out there" idea, but a couple of technologists can connect the dots and make easy-to-use and it could well be a part of how churches can quickly and efficiently communicate to its attendees. Having lived in the mid-Atlantic where a big snowfall could cancel activities, it would be great to get a text message notification personally delivered, rather than solely relying on announcements on website, email, and/or radio.

Wanted to put this "out here" to get your wheels churning -- add a comment of how something like this can help you and/or your church.