Freelance Writing & Business Communication

Is email stealing your precious time?

How do you start your business day? If you are like many independent practitioners, small business owners and entrepreneurs, you turn on your computer and spend an hour or more reading and replying to electronic mail, reading electronic newsletters and online newspapers and surfing the Web.

Does that sound like you? If not, congratulations. The Internet is not eating your precious time. You do not have e-mail time leaks to plug. If all the e-mail you read and all the Web-surfing you do is directly related to conducting your business, then, once again, congratulations.
However, if you start your business days with lengthy personal or non-business-related e-mail and Web-surfing, allow me to ask you a simple question:

Why are you allowing others to set your agenda and steal your time?

If (like me) you have assignments, requests for quotes, research material, feedback on first drafts and other business-related information landing in your Inbox daily, then you can be forgiven for starting your day in your Inbox, reviewing work-related e-mail messages that generate billable hours. However, if you are launching a business or attempting to boost your business income, time spent reading and replying to personal e-mail and time spent surfing the Web is, in short, time wasted.

How should you start your day if you are not working the billable hours you want to work? You should start your day doing marketing tasks that will generate billable hours. So why do so many freelance writers, Website designers, graphic artists, consultants and other independent practitioners and small-business owners start their day wasting time? Many think their problem is one of poor time management. If you think that, then you have bought into the time-management myth: “You are a born procrastinator who must exercise supernatural will to overcome this insidious malaise.”

Frankly, most business people who waste time do so because they do not know how they should spend their time. They may have some vague idea of what they aspire to, but they do not have a road map to lead them to that destination. They do not have a Business Vision. They have no goals. They do not have a Marketing Plan. Such people fritter away valuable hours hoping that work will find them – that gigs will fall like manna from heaven.

If you have been in business for a number of years, occasionally a former client may call. But can you afford to sit back and wait for that to happen as you read newspapers, watch TV, play computer games, surf the Web or read personal e-mail? Which leads me to ask: How many e-mails are in your Inbox right now?

Keep your inbox empty
Believe it or not, your goal should be an empty Inbox at the end of each day. Can you achieve this? Yes, you can. I am living proof. However, if you do not believe me, read the e-mails I received from someone who took a workshop that I conduct, The Six-Figure Freelancer (based on the book by the same name – www.paullima.com/books).

July 4, 2005: “After taking your Six-Figure Freelancer workshop, I was sceptical about the importance of emptying your Inbox every day. Then I found a book that also recommends emptying your Inbox every day. It reinforced all you said. I am going to try it. Only 3,589 more e-mail messages to go!”

August 1, 2005: “I did it! I cleaned out my Inbox and now I’m keeping it that way! Take that, 3,589 e-mails! I can’t believe it! I feel like this gigantic weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”

E-mail messages in your Inbox can move your focus from the tasks at hand, those you are supposed to do, to whatever junk is in your Inbox. Or they can lead to an overwhelming sensation that you have so much to do and no time to do it. But you can overcome all of that. How so? Follow this e-mail management process.

First, understand and accept that e-mail is not a phone conversation. Nor is it Instant Messaging. It does not have to take place in real time. With that in mind, schedule the time or times during the day when you will read your e-mail. Outlook lets you check e-mail every 5 minutes or every 5 hours or every 5 days. So your first task is to manage when you will receive and read your e-mail.

When you receive e-mail, do one of the following:
- Read and delete (presuming you do not need to reply or save)
- Read, reply and delete (presuming you do not need to save)
- Read and file in an appropriate folder (presuming you do not need to reply or to reply immediately).
- Read, reply and file messages in appropriate folders.

Appropriate folders?
In Microsoft Outlook, as well as many other e-mail applications, you can create folders for each client or each project you are working on, or for each project for each client, and you can move relevant e-mail into your appropriate folders. In Outlook (the Office version, not Outlook Express) you can also move e-mail into Tasks or Calendar.

Task Manager allows you to schedule tasks (such as replying to the e-mail you moved to Tasks). A reminder can be set to pop up when the task is due.

Calendar allows you to block time for meetings, interviews, cold calls and so on. A reminder can be set to pop up days, hours or minutes before the scheduled event.
Say you have to shower and dress before you travel for 30 minutes to get to a meeting. Set your reminder to pop up two hours before the meeting so you have time to do all that.

In other words, out of sight is not out of mind because your computer will remind you when you have to do whatever you have to do.

So why am I telling you this? I am suggesting you use Folders, Calendar and Tasks (or the equivalent applications in your e-mail application or scheduling software) to keep your Inbox empty and to schedule your time more effectively. The use of these applications – or a paper-based to-do list and calendar – also comes into play as you develop and implement your Marketing Plan.

So use Outlook or an equivalent application to help you manage your time. And do not let e-mail steal your time!

If you can afford to procrastinate, then by all means do so. If not… look at how you use your time, look at the ways you should spend your time if you want to make a go of it as a business owner, and apply your time wisely – to your business.

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Paul Lima is a freelance writer, copywriter, business writing instructor and media interview trainer. He is also the author of several books on business writing and the business of freelance writing. His latest book is How To Write A Non-Fiction Book in 60 Days.