How To Crank Through Your Gmail

• Empty your inbox. Keeping your email overflowing, and you’re soon lost in a sea of undone tasks and urgent requests and unhappy people. It’s a chaotic jumble of confusion, and enough to overwhelm the best of us. Instead, empty out your inbox and keep it that way. When you process your inbox, go through it quickly, dispose of everything, and be done with it. Read on to find out more.
• Temporary zone. If you’ve got hundreds of emails in your inbox, the prospect of clearing that out is daunting. Rather than let this overwhelming task stop you, tag everything in the inbox “to clear” and archive it all (except perhaps the last few urgent emails if you’re ready to deal with those now). Then, from here on out, clear out all new, incoming emails. And schedule 30-60 minutes each day to clear out your “to clear” tag, disposing of each email in that tag as described below. Over the course of a few days (or a week), you should be able to get caught up.
• Dispose of each email. OK, you’re ready to process your inbox (or your “to clear” tag). Open each email, one at a time, and make a decision on what to do with it. Here are your choices:

1. respond immediately
2. tag it “@reply” if you can’t respond now (and archive it)
3. delete it
4. delegate it (forward and delete or archive)
5. put it on your to-do list (and then archive), if it has an action in it that needs to be done later
6. archive it if you need to refer to it later.

Those are your choices. Do one of those, quickly, with each email, and move on to the next. When you’re done, you’ll have an empty inbox!

• 2-minute rule. If it takes 2 minutes or less to respond to an email, do it right away, as quickly as possible. Most emails, I’ve found, only require a couple of sentences to reply. Do those now. If it’ll take some thought or more time to write a response, tag it “@reply”, to be replied to later today if possible, and archive it.
• Tag and archive. One of the beauties of Gmail is that there’s no need to file things in a complicated folder and subfolder hierarchy. The time spent filing is minimum. Tag an email (if necessary) and archive it. You can always use Gmail’s very fast search to find it later. Most of the time, I don’t even tag — just archive and search later.
• No reply needed. Not every email requires a reply. Learn to spot those instantly. It might just be an FYI email, which you can note and then archive. Or it might be something forwarded to you — delete or archive those immediately. Try to avoid responding to emails in which you’re just in the “cc” field, not in the “to” field. Replying to fewer emails means less time spent cranking through your inbox.
• Reduce your inflow. Do you get a lot of emails from mailing lists, or newsletters, or advertising, or regular things like that? Unsubscribe to as many as possible. You can drastically reduce the number of emails you receive, and thus reduce the amount of time needed to process your inbox, by stopping many of these automated emails. Also, if someone you know is sending you regular emails you don’t really need, politely ask them to stop.
• AHK. OK, so how do you crank faster? AutoHotKey’s text replacement feature is a great tool for doing that — from automated replies to multiple signatures, you can save yourself tons of valuable time by setting up a few regular keyboard shortcuts for text replacement. I use a number of different signatures, depending on who I’m writing to, and after setting up AHK’s text replacement for each signature, I can just type a few keystrokes and the appropriate signature is generated. For example, I have “wsig” and “wsig2″ for my two different jobs, and “psig” and “psig2″ for different personal correspondence, and “bsig” for my blog signature. Another great way to use AHK is to generate a few common replies that you email just about every day. I haven’t actually begun using this yet, but I’m beginning to consider it with a lot more companies emailing me personally asking me to try out their products.
• Keyboard shortcuts. Another invaluable tool for cranking. Using the mouse takes way too much motion (and thus time). Stay in the keyboard as much as possible, and your cranking skills increase dramatically. Gmail is great for this — it just takes a few minutes and a little practice to learn the shortcuts. There are a lot of great shortcuts (Go here for the complete list). Just a few I use a lot: “c” for compose, “r” for reply, “y+o” to archive and move to the next message, “tab+Enter” to send a message after composing it, “/” to search, “j” and “k” to move up and down the list of emails, “#+o” to delete and then open the next message.
• Filters. I have a couple dozen filters set up — this is possibly Gmail’s killer feature. For example, all comments and pingbacks in my blog go to my “@reply” folder, so they don’t fill up my inbox. Same with Google Calendar notifications. I also have a Monthly Challenge mailing list that I do every day, and those get shunted into their own tag and archived. Others get forwarded to the appropriate address, or deleted immediately.
• Killfile. I get a lot of email forwarded to me from people. I hate chain mails and joke emails. After getting a bunch of these from one person, I’ll killfile them. Just set up a filter with their address or name in the “from” field, and make “delete” the action.
• @reply: Set up a time each day to go through your “@reply” folder (or tag). If you can’t get to it when you process your inbox, and you tag it “@reply”, you should try to get to it sometime that day, so your @reply folder doesn’t get to overflowing, and you don’t become one of those people to whom I send an email and it gets lost in a bottomless void. Respond within a day, and people will appreciate it. Of course, if you don’t want to respond, just delete.
• Batch processing. It’s most efficient to do all your emails in groups, rather than processing them as they come in. For this reason, turn off your email notification. Set times during the day (2-3 times a day is sufficient for most) and give yourself 10-15 minutes to process your inbox. Do it quickly, all at one time, and get out. Of course, if one of those times is when you process your @reply folder, you might want to give yourself another 10-15 minutes on top of that.
• Email diet. The above tip may be difficult if you’re addicted to email. Go on a diet, if that’s the case. Go one whole day without even checking your email. If you do this, you’ll realize that the world doesn’t collapse if you don’t check your email. From then on, only process email during those 2-3 set times, for 10-15 minutes each time.

[via webworkerdaily.com]

How to Hack Your Internship & Low Pos in Office

When you’ve just finished a project:

Let him know you’re thinking about the future. Either ask him, “So, what’s next?” or let him know you’ll be needing some time to get things together before he approaches you with the next project. Something like, “I’m getting ready for the next project. Could we talk about it in an hour/this afternoon/tomorrow/next week after I tie up some loose ends? I’ve been focusing on getting this done but want to make sure I haven’t let anything fall through the cracks.” Both approaches let him know that you’re focused on what is best for the company. The second allows you to look this way but gives you the break you need when the project you’ve been working your butt off to finish is finally done.

When she’s pointing our your little mistakes (Again!):

Remember that this is part of her job, and may be as distasteful to her as it is to you (or may not, depending on the boss). If the criticism is particularly difficult for you to hear, remember to breathe before you say anything. A deep breath or so, when done surrepitiously, can give you the strength to respond calmly. Then, if it’s appropriate, defend yourself. If her criticism is just, nod as she speaks. Tell her, “Thank you for showing me how you would prefer this to be done/how this should be done/how to add a column of numbers/whatever.” If she persists, or is talking to you about something for the Nth time, say, “This seems to be something that you want me to work on/I should work on. Are there any resources available to help me improve?” Whether you need to be on time, make the web page load faster, or something else, it’s hard for a boss to fault an employee who wants to change. If she points you in a direction, follow through!

When you’re swamped and he wants you to do more:

Be honest about what you can do. Most supervisors appreciate hearing when their people are overworked and stressed. If he likes up front, honest people, say, “You know, I’d be happy to take that on, but realistically I won’t be able to get to it until I finish with X, Y, and Z. Will that work for you?” He may take it to someone else, or he may give it to you, but either way he knows what he’s looking at. If he’s going to lay it on you no matter what you say, try, “I’ll take that on. Right now, I’m working on P, D, and Q. Where does this fall in priority relative to those?” With this, he knows where he stands and what you have on your plate, and he can determine when you get to it.

When you know you’ve made a big mistake:

If you can’t fix it in time, be the first to let her know. Swallow the butterflies and make your weak knees walk to her office (or write that email). Most of the time she’s going to find out anyway, so you’re only prolonging the agony and creating a ton of anxiety for yourself if you don’t tell her. Your poise and honesty will also make an impression, even if she’s upset and there are consequences. At the very least, she’ll have a positive sense of your integrity for any future recommendations. At best? You might save your job.

When you’re interviewing for a different job:

In a few companies, this is considered tantamount to treason. If you work for one of them, keep it under the table but don’t lie if you’re asked directly. You might be asked to leave, but they won’t be able to fault your integrity in a recommendation. But if you work for most companies (or, at least, most of the ones I’ve experience/heard about), be honest. Tell her what you’re doing. If you’re valuable where you are, you would be surprised how many times she will do all she can to get you a counter-offer. If she can’t or if she has some other motivation to not re-hire you, she will appreciate not being blind-sided when you turn in your notice.

[via wisebread]

How to Hack Your Presentation Skills

5 Powerful Hacks to Immediately Improve Your Presentations

“It takes one hour of preparation for each minute of presentation time.”

- Wayne Burgraff

Note: This post was written by personal development blogger Scott Young. You can check out his website here.

Communication is a skill. That means if you want to blow the interviewer away, knock them out with your slide show or have them cheering after your speech you need to practice. Unfortunately since formal presentations, interviews and speeches are often an infrequent occurrence, you can’t become a master overnight.

But even in my own limited speaking I’ve discovered a couple hacks that can be used to improve your communication right away. They can work immediately to give you an edge in an upcoming event.

Hack #1: Rephrase Questions

When you get asked a question, spend a few seconds to rephrase the question. If you are giving a speech to an audience this has the first benefit of clearly stating the audience members question for everyone to hear. But the hidden benefit of doing this is that it gives you a few extra seconds to prepare a response.

Polished professional speakers and interview veterans can prepare for common questions in advance with a great reply. But if you don’t have the experience or a question throws you off balance, you can maintain composure by rephrasing the question. To everyone it looks as if you immediately knew an eloquent response, but in reality you were given a few seconds to process a response.

Hack #2: Pause, Don’t Trip

When you are nervous, everything get’s magnified. During an interview, speech or presentation forgetting what you intended to say or losing your flow of speech can be terrifying. When this happens remember to stop and take a deep breath. This pause feels incredibly unnatural for the speaker, but it is usually barely noticed by the audience.

Pausing is far better than tripping over your words and making incoherent sentences. Most people end up speaking too fast when they feel nervous, so intentionally slowing down and taking time to pause can prevent tripping over your words which is a lot more noticeable.

Hack #3: Write Out the Tricky Parts

If you have to talk for over five or ten minutes, it can be difficult and incredibly time-consuming to prepare every single word of your speech and memorize it. Many professional speakers instead choose to just write major topic headings so they understand the structure but can deliver the speech naturally.

When you get a chance to practice your presentation, notice points where you trip up. These are usually the same points you will have trouble with when presenting. Write out those few sentences word for word before presenting. The easy parts of your speech will continue to flow and you can be thoroughly prepared to handle the harder parts.

Hack #4: Watch Your Apologies

Never apologize when the goal of that apology is to soften the criticism of the audience. Some speakers apologize for appearing nervous when giving a speech. The truth is most the people in the audience wouldn’t have realized the speaker was nervous until he apologized for it. Apologizing from where you lack confidence only draws more attention to your weaknesses and detracts from your performance.

Apologies for legitimate errors are acceptable, but apologies designed to elicit sympathy won’t help your performance.

Hack #5: Don’t Distract With Powerpoint

Powerpoint presentations are very popular among presenters. But remember that as a speaker you want the focus to be on you. Slides should enhance your presentation, not form a backup. If I can get all the information I need out of your slides, why should I pay attention to you?

If you watch any presentations done by hugely successful speaker and marketer Seth Godin, you quickly notice how many of his slides are nothing more than a single image or word. These slides enhance the message he is trying to convey but they don’t steal the spotlight since they don’t contain enough information to distract.

If you are going to be doing a lot of presentations, interviews or formal communications in your work or life, I’d suggest joining Toastmasters. A non-profit organization dedicated to improving communication skills they can give you practice. But if you are concerned about an approaching presentation you’ll just have to hack it.

About Scott Young:
Scott Young is a productivity and improvement blogger. You can check out his blog here, and you can subscribe to his feed (updated 5-7x per week with posts similar to this one). Some of his most popular articles include Habitual Mastery, Double Your Reading Rate and How to Ace Your Finals Without Studying.

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