Do you find yourself set up for a productive day only to be derailed by your emails? Checking and replying to emails always takes up more time than expected and can really bog us down and derail productivity. The problem of spending way too much time in my inbox has been bugging me for some time, so I was very excited to find out that Michael Bungay Stania has had similar problems and has been working on solutions. Michael is the Wall Street Journal best selling author of The Coaching Habit, which Brene Brown called a classic with over one point five million books sold. Michael was named the number one thought leader in coaching by Thinkers fifty and his insights have transformed how leaders all around the world work. He's clearly very busy and can't afford to waste time on emails, yet he still finds himself procrastinating with them. But he has a lot of strategies and tricks that we can all benefit from using. Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber. On today's Quick Win episode, we go back to an interview from the past and reveal a quick win. But this one was actually so special that we kept it out of the main episode so we could share it with you today. To start, I asked Michael about his experience being stuck in the email cycle and how he's working to break free from it.

Do you find yourself set up for a productive day only to be derailed by your emails? Checking and replying to emails always takes up more time than expected and can really bog us down and derail productivity. The problem of spending way too much time in my inbox has been bugging me for some time, so I was very excited to find out that Michael Bungay Stania has had similar problems and has been working on solutions. Michael is the Wall Street Journal best selling author of The Coaching Habit, which Brene Brown called a classic with over one point five million books sold. Michael was named the number one thought leader in coaching by Thinkers fifty and his insights have transformed how leaders all around the world work. He's clearly very busy and can't afford to waste time on emails, yet he still finds himself procrastinating with them. But he has a lot of strategies and tricks that we can all benefit from using. Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber. On today's Quick Win episode, we go back to an interview from the past and reveal a quick win. But this one was actually so special that we kept it out of the main episode so we could share it with you today. To start, I asked Michael about his experience being stuck in the email cycle and how he's working to break free from it.

Like, I'm struggling a little bit to know how to break it, because I'm learning that, you know, for sure, one of the ways to break email addictions stop sending emails, because emails sent create emails that respond to it. But you know, I have too many email accounts, Like I have one for NBS dot Works, I have one for Boxer Crowns, a company I started. I have one a Gmail, one for personal. I have one for change Signal, a new project that I'm launching. So one is I've got too many email boxes anyway, But that's not the real problem. The real problem is I will go to answering email as a form of busyness. It's relatively easy. I can work hard at my screen and go tap tap, tap tap, and I can have small little hits of dopamine as I make progress, and I hit send on a bunch of things. But do I want to die and have on my grave. Michael managed his email quite well. At times, I'm like, that's that's not kind of aspirational for me, but I notice just how comforting it is. I just noticed that because I run my own organization and I'm the boss, in some ways, I can dream about email in a way that some people, Paul won't be able to dream about email. But what I know is that I am outstanding at hacking every system I set up to try and protect me from email. So you know, I have I think called Mailman, which means that the email only gets delivered three times a day. But I know how to hack that. So if I need to kind of get it, I can do that. I use Superhuman, which helps you get faster and email, and that's helpful as well, but I still spend a lot of time doing my email on Superhuman. So literally, just before this call, I was with Claudine is my assistant, and I'm like Claudine. But March is fairly open. The goal is by the end of March, I am not the first touch on any single email. Everything gets kind of worked through you first, and then I get what's left over. Now I don't know what that looks like, because I'm like, in Claudine, you need to set the rules on this, because if I set the rules, I break the rules and I'm a nightmare. So I've just asked the guy, so let's go away, and I have you draft to first go at this, which is what's the process, what's the system that will keep me out of email? What's the price I pay for breaking the rules? Because part of the challenge for me is because I'm the founder, there's no price for disobedience. Every guy's oh, Michael, he's just you know, he'll do whatever he wants. He's such a maverick, and I'm like, it's terrible. I need there to be a price. So it's like, what is it? Is it? Like, Michael, you have to donate five hundred dollars every time you answer an email before it's been assigned to you, Like that would be a high incentive not to do email if it's costing me five hundred dollars a pop. Because I'm like, yeah, I like it, but I don't like it that much. So we need to have a think about consequences for me misbehaving. So there's me confessing that are my struggles with email you're up against that as well. What lessons are you learning? What's your best current wid and how to manage email?

Like, I'm struggling a little bit to know how to break it, because I'm learning that, you know, for sure, one of the ways to break email addictions stop sending emails, because emails sent create emails that respond to it. But you know, I have too many email accounts, Like I have one for NBS dot Works, I have one for Boxer Crowns, a company I started. I have one a Gmail, one for personal. I have one for change Signal, a new project that I'm launching. So one is I've got too many email boxes anyway, But that's not the real problem. The real problem is I will go to answering email as a form of busyness. It's relatively easy. I can work hard at my screen and go tap tap, tap tap, and I can have small little hits of dopamine as I make progress, and I hit send on a bunch of things. But do I want to die and have on my grave. Michael managed his email quite well. At times, I'm like, that's that's not kind of aspirational for me, but I notice just how comforting it is. I just noticed that because I run my own organization and I'm the boss, in some ways, I can dream about email in a way that some people, Paul won't be able to dream about email. But what I know is that I am outstanding at hacking every system I set up to try and protect me from email. So you know, I have I think called Mailman, which means that the email only gets delivered three times a day. But I know how to hack that. So if I need to kind of get it, I can do that. I use Superhuman, which helps you get faster and email, and that's helpful as well, but I still spend a lot of time doing my email on Superhuman. So literally, just before this call, I was with Claudine is my assistant, and I'm like Claudine. But March is fairly open. The goal is by the end of March, I am not the first touch on any single email. Everything gets kind of worked through you first, and then I get what's left over. Now I don't know what that looks like, because I'm like, in Claudine, you need to set the rules on this, because if I set the rules, I break the rules and I'm a nightmare. So I've just asked the guy, so let's go away, and I have you draft to first go at this, which is what's the process, what's the system that will keep me out of email? What's the price I pay for breaking the rules? Because part of the challenge for me is because I'm the founder, there's no price for disobedience. Every guy's oh, Michael, he's just you know, he'll do whatever he wants. He's such a maverick, and I'm like, it's terrible. I need there to be a price. So it's like, what is it? Is it? Like, Michael, you have to donate five hundred dollars every time you answer an email before it's been assigned to you, Like that would be a high incentive not to do email if it's costing me five hundred dollars a pop. Because I'm like, yeah, I like it, but I don't like it that much. So we need to have a think about consequences for me misbehaving. So there's me confessing that are my struggles with email you're up against that as well. What lessons are you learning? What's your best current wid and how to manage email?

I mean a really simple one. I also use Superhuman. Is that I just don't open Superhuman. If Superhuman is not open on my computer, it's kind of a hassle to wait the five seconds for the software to reboot and open itself and load all the emails. And that is enough of a barrier to go. Do I really need to be in my inbox? I think where I come unstuck is when I need to find something in my inbox or when I need to send something. Let's just say I had a task to do that was maybe a deep sprint in the morning that was put together a proposal for a client, and then I want closure on that task, which involves sending the email, and to do that. I used to have a little plug into Chrome when I was on the Google ecosystem, but I haven't found an equivalent now that we're on the Microsoft ecosystem and Superhuman does have a plug in you, It's like it's all or nothing. You open your inbox or you keep it closed. Whereas there used to be this great Chrome plug in. I can't remember what it was called, which is not very helpful. But you hit a button, it would open a compose email window and then you could send the window without getting into your inbox and that saved me a lot of inbox time. So that's where I come unstuck. Where the deep work thing that I'm working on or need to finish, I need to open up Superhuman and that's a problem that I need to solve for right now.

I mean a really simple one. I also use Superhuman. Is that I just don't open Superhuman. If Superhuman is not open on my computer, it's kind of a hassle to wait the five seconds for the software to reboot and open itself and load all the emails. And that is enough of a barrier to go. Do I really need to be in my inbox? I think where I come unstuck is when I need to find something in my inbox or when I need to send something. Let's just say I had a task to do that was maybe a deep sprint in the morning that was put together a proposal for a client, and then I want closure on that task, which involves sending the email, and to do that. I used to have a little plug into Chrome when I was on the Google ecosystem, but I haven't found an equivalent now that we're on the Microsoft ecosystem and Superhuman does have a plug in you, It's like it's all or nothing. You open your inbox or you keep it closed. Whereas there used to be this great Chrome plug in. I can't remember what it was called, which is not very helpful. But you hit a button, it would open a compose email window and then you could send the window without getting into your inbox and that saved me a lot of inbox time. So that's where I come unstuck. Where the deep work thing that I'm working on or need to finish, I need to open up Superhuman and that's a problem that I need to solve for right now.

I mean, the challenges is like more efficient for me makes less efficient for somebody else. Like I could draft a whole bunch of things in Google say or something like that, and go Ake Claudine, I've drafted the emails, can you now paste them into the email and send them on my behalf? And that would save me from getting into inbox stuff, but would also mean Claudina is now doing stuff which just doesn't feel particularly rewarding for her. Oh great, I get to cut and paste Michael's emails into an email thing. So anyway, I'll be delighted to see what she comes up with in terms of trying to save me from myself.

I mean, the challenges is like more efficient for me makes less efficient for somebody else. Like I could draft a whole bunch of things in Google say or something like that, and go Ake Claudine, I've drafted the emails, can you now paste them into the email and send them on my behalf? And that would save me from getting into inbox stuff, but would also mean Claudina is now doing stuff which just doesn't feel particularly rewarding for her. Oh great, I get to cut and paste Michael's emails into an email thing. So anyway, I'll be delighted to see what she comes up with in terms of trying to save me from myself.

That's interesting. I feel like that's maybe a hack that I can try because Jem and I will typically communicate on Microsoft teams Chat, and I'm not addicted to that at all. I could go for days without checking that. I have to remind myself to be in teams Chat. But also it's a good way to not be in my inbox but communicate with Jem. And so maybe that's the thing. Maybe I just I pace the email there because for Jem it would take her two minutes out of her day. And I might try that. I might try that clauding.

That's interesting. I feel like that's maybe a hack that I can try because Jem and I will typically communicate on Microsoft teams Chat, and I'm not addicted to that at all. I could go for days without checking that. I have to remind myself to be in teams Chat. But also it's a good way to not be in my inbox but communicate with Jem. And so maybe that's the thing. Maybe I just I pace the email there because for Jem it would take her two minutes out of her day. And I might try that. I might try that clauding.

And I do. There's a bunch of emails that I have not yet figured out how to access, and I'm trying not to hack that system. So when we have our meetings, we meet for an hour start an end of the week. She'll walk me through a bunch of inquiries or emails that have come in for me, and I'll go respond like this, and she'll make some notes and then she'll send those emails off and I don't get to see them. That works really well. So maybe there is a precedent which is like, actually, I'll just give you notes and you can compose the email on my behalf.

And I do. There's a bunch of emails that I have not yet figured out how to access, and I'm trying not to hack that system. So when we have our meetings, we meet for an hour start an end of the week. She'll walk me through a bunch of inquiries or emails that have come in for me, and I'll go respond like this, and she'll make some notes and then she'll send those emails off and I don't get to see them. That works really well. So maybe there is a precedent which is like, actually, I'll just give you notes and you can compose the email on my behalf.

I hope you enjoyed this little quick win with Michael. If you would like to listen to my full interview with him. You can find a link to that in the show notes. If you like today's show, make sure you get follow on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation.

I hope you enjoyed this little quick win with Michael. If you would like to listen to my full interview with him. You can find a link to that in the show notes. If you like today's show, make sure you get follow on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation.