Features
SchoolCIO: eMail Trouble
9/29/2011 By:
Managing the online communications
structure for a school district is hard.
Managing your own personal email
inbox? Probably harder. There are
ways to deal besides handing it off
to an assistant.
Michael Linenberger, author
of Master Your Workday Now!:
Proven Strategies to Control
Chaos, Create Outcomes,
& Connect Your Work to
Who You Really Are (New
Academy Publishers, 2010)
and Total Workday Control
Using Microsoft Outlook,
3rd edition (New Academy
Publishers, 2011), specializes in
organization. Here is a quick look at
his tried-and-true philosophy for getting
control of your Microsoft Outlook
inbox. The strategy can be applied to
most email clients.
Reconfigure the Task
Manager
Linenberger estimates that only five
percent of Outlook users consistently
use the Task Manager. “People give up
on it quickly because it’s configured
poorly,” he says. “It’s based on 50-yearold
principles of task management that
no longer apply.”
Out of the box, Outlook puts the
oldest tasks at the top of list in bright
red, but Linenberger has a simple way
to apply a methodology that’s more in
line with the way we work today.
“I assert that 80 to 90 percent of
our new work these days comes in
through email,” he says. “Our inbox is
not designed to be a task-management
system but that’s what we use it for.
Email doesn’t have the tools to manage,
prioritize, delegate, assign, or date
them, which is what we need. All it
has is a flag, which isn’t enough.
“We keep emails of tasks
we hope to get to, which
locks your inbox. We can’t
file or throw it away
because we’re afraid
we’ll lose it. The titles
of emails rarely have
anything to do with the
tasks, so we have to
open each email and reread
it, which is horribly
ineffective.”
So what should you do?
Linenberger divides incoming
emails into one of three
urgency zones:
1 Critical Now: It must be handled
today. There can be no more than five
and they should be checked continually,
e.g., once an hour.
2 Opportunity Now: Maybe do today,
but must be handled within 10 days.
These should be kept to 20 and
checked at least once a day).
3 Over the Horizon: These items can
wait 10 days or longer. Can contain an
unlimited amount and must be checked
once a week.
He converts each email into a task
and files it into the proper zone. “When
you do this, your inbox becomes tension-
free. All the action requests are in
your task system and you can file away
your inbox and it becomes clean.”
For more information on
Linenberger’s system, watch the
Getting Started video on his Web
site, take a webinar, or check out
one of his books. www.michaellinenberger.com
School CIO Advisors speak out
“I do my ‘one-touch rule.’ I try to ‘touch’ the email only once: open it, deal with it, file it or delete
it. I also cc myself on any responses that I want a record of and delete the original.”
—Jennifer Harriton-Wilson, director of special, remedial, and assessment
services & CIO, Haldane (NY) Central School District
School CIO
Advisors speak out
“Reading email
is a scheduled
activity in the
day. Because of
how it is often
used, it may
take two or
three times during the day.
Because many people try to
use email like a telephone call
(‘Hey, I need a reply NOW!’)
or they use text messaging
to imply an immediate
need, you need to help
people understand how you
manage communications.
Also, remember where
you work. Many of your
important clients are teachers
and principals who are not
sitting at their desk waiting
with bated breath for a
communication from you.”
—Gordon Dahlby, educational
consultant for leadership in
policy, planning and practice
“My best survival
technique is
to make very
generous use
of the applying
filters, not just to
specific email addresses, but
to email domains. Filters that
put the email from domains
directly into the trash.”
— Doug Johnson, director of
media and technology, Mankato
(MN) Area Public Schools
School CIO Advisors speak out
“I have several different email accounts, which helps to
manage things. I can work on what I want to work on from a
separate email account—for example, for the college I teach
for work, for personal email, shopping, and so on.”
—Nancy Caramanico, instructional technology specialist and School CIO
blogger
* Try not to fall more than one day behind.
* Use follow-up flags to check request status.
* Keep attachments on email string; use forward
instead of reply.
* Keep emails very short.
* Use IM if information can be provided.
* Try to use as few attachments as possible; link to documents.
—Deborah Karcher, CIO, Miami-Dade County (FL) Public Schools
SCHOOL CIO By
the numbers
200
Average number of emails
our School CIO Advisors
receive each day
50
Lowest number of emails
received each day by a School
CIO Advisor
300
Highest number of emails
received each day by a School
CIO Advisor