"Keeping Your Eye on the Ball: Mastering Paperwork and Email Like a Pro"

A few months ago, I worked with a colleague overwhelmed by the relentless number of growing tasks needing to be accomplished in their job as a school administrator. While sitting in his office discussing his frustrations, I noticed many sticky notes, loose papers, notebooks, and over chaos on his desk, credenza, and a nearby table. I asked to see his email inbox, and it was much of the same with thousands of emails--some opened, some not opened, and many opened but not responded to for weeks due to feeling overwhelmed by the work. I put on my coaching hat and explained that he has three options with everything he touches, including email.

The Process.

Determine What is Needed. Is the email provided to you for informational purposes?

Does the email require action on your part? Is there a due date? Are there subtasks to

be completed before being able to respond or provide the requested information? Who is

the best person to accomplish the required action?

Take Action for a Controlled Office. After reading an email, attending a meeting, taking a phone call, or returning to your office from supervision or classroom visits, take immediate action. Identify what needs to be done with the information obtained during these times. Are there tasks to be done, papers to be filed, notes to be organized, or observations to document? The answer is always yes.

Back to the scenario above with the colleague who had meeting notes, notes from

phone calls, and meetings all over his desk and office. We need a strategic way to

organize this information for action and reference. Of all the people he and I work with, we are the only ones capable of putting our hands-on information in a matter of

minutes due to our organizational techniques.

We began by developing a strategy for his email inbox. While there are many apps

available he and I both now use google tasks, One Note (I use Good Notes for IPAD), and either google snooze or Boomerang.

A Zero Inbox Process for Success

(1) Immediately respond to the email and archive.

(2) Snooze the email using the google snooze feature to return the email to your inbox at a more appropriate time for response.

(3) Add to task list. Use google tasks embedded within Gmail to store the

email and assign a day or day and time to attend to the task. Google Tasks also allows

you to add subtasks that must be completed before responding to the

original email.

Moving emails from the inbox to an intended place for action creates

less stress while also allowing you to control your day versus your day being governed

by the overwhelming feeling of having to attend to every email as it arrives in your

inbox. Google tasks are then embedded into your calendar so out of sight does not

become out of mind resulting in incomplete tasks.

(4) Store It. Finally, if the email needs to be stored for future reference, use One Note

or another note-taking application where you have established folders for keeping

notes. A searchable area such as one note is best for quick retrieval of information.

Store Your Notes and Take Action

We use a similar process with notes we take throughout the day from interactions with

people and meetings. Strategically and intentionally storing information in one place

allows for each retrieval, and intentionally planning our days allows more time to get into

classrooms and spend time in areas where our people are doing the work and

learning.

(1) Immediately respond to action items in your notes. Build in a maximum of 15-

minutes after meetings to respond to immediate "do now" tasks and plan for the

completion of tasks that will take longer.

(2) Store it. Transfer your notes to One Note or another note-taking app or use an app

such as the Genius app to scan your notes and upload them to the appropriate electronic retrieval system.

(3) Add to task list. Use google tasks to plan to complete the task

assigned to you from your meetings or interactions during which "to-do" items were

identified by immediately adding these tasks to your google tasks. Assign a date and

date or time for completion. Aim to complete the task 48-hours in advance of the

deadline to create a buffer of time. Each day review your google task list and

complete each task to prevent a backlog of tasks from forming. If you cannot

get to a task, reassign it to another day within your deadline to ensure it does not get

lost.

While others often feel stressed and overwhelmed, my colleague and I have an intentional process for managing information and tasks, enabling us to get more done with less stress. Take Control of Your Office Today!