How To Get Your Shit Together

A click bait-y way to talk about how dealing with emails is changing my life. (see, still hyperbolic AF!)

Am I sending an email newsletter about getting less emails?

Of course I am.

We’re all a mess going into holidays, right? Kids are about to be off school for a week, we’re traveling to our family’s house or they’re traveling to ours, and a huge amount of work things are hurtling down at us from the sky like one of Wile E. Coyote’s traps gone wrong.

Oh, it’s just me, huh? You all are well adjusted, full-blown grown-ups with your shit completely together? FINE! Then this is only about me, I guess.

A few things came up in my family life that messed with our holiday plans, which meant that my work schedule took a hit as well. That’s to be expected and you’d think I’d be prepared for that. But here’s the thing, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I mean, I know how to write and draw and all of that. I’m a firm “Everyday I’m hustlin’” subscriber so I’m always on my grind. My work gets done and I’m proud of it.

What I’m talking about here is organization. When it comes to my schedule, I live and die by the calendar, except… not really. I’ve been at this for 22 years now and I’m still faking it until i’m making it on the organization front.

You see, I write the deadlines on my calendar. Which means anywhere from 1-3 covers per week. And at least 1 script per week on the 3 comic series I’m writing at any given time. And a few hours of signing for Megan and John so they can keep the Stupid Fresh Mess shipping machine running smooth. Throw in 2-5 meetings with various people/companies, and the calendar is filled with To-Do’s. My problem is, I don’t really see them until it’s mission critical, ya know. If I have a cover due on Friday, I get an alert on Thursday. Or I’m working away and the meeting reminder pops up 30 minutes prior, completely taking me out of my zone. Not ideal. At all. Which means, if you take a day or two away from me my whole “no plan for the week other than knowing there are things due” strategy becomes even more chaotic, resulting in me feeling chaotic. Somehow, I’ve been pulling all of that off for years and years.

I decided it was time I tried to take back some control. My work schedule is too full to just be winging it like I’ve always done. I rewatched an old video from my buddy Jake Parker called TIME MANAGEMENT FOR CREATIVES. He has some good insights taken from various books he references so I grabbed the audiobooks and started listening.

One of the books was called 15 Secrets Successful People Know about Time Management. So much of it was hitting home and the clouds were already starting to part and I could see the light. I’ll talk about some of those things in the future, but right now I’m going to focus on a quote that hit me like the piano above.

“Email is a great way for other people to put their priorities into your life; control your inbox.”
― Kevin E. Kruse, NOT A BOOK: 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs

I realized right then that my inbox full of emails was probably the starting point for almost every battle with time I have ever had. All job offers, negotiations, appearance invites, deadlines, approvals, and all other work things start in my inbox. The problem is, those are all mixed in with newsletters, spam, school info, bills, Amazon receipts, etc. I had over 25,000 emails sitting in my inbox. They were all read, but it still looked like I was hosting an email version of BURNING MAN in my inbox. You know, a bunch of people from different walks of life gathering in the same place and trying to fit together and throw a giant party. I had no idea how much anxiety that was adding to my days by staring at this mayhem on the daily.

The book brings up the concept of INBOX ZERO. I know, know, sounds pretty intense right? It’s not. The idea is to keep NO emails sitting in your inbox. It’s actually the easiest change I’ve ever made to my daily tasks and it’s had a HUGE result in my getting a grip on time management. There are variations on this theory and most of them are the 3-4 D’s. Here’s what works for me. First, select ALL of the emails in your inbox and archive them. Get them out of there. Start fresh!

When opening an email, choose one of the 3 D’s.

1. Do it: Deal with it right then, and then archive or delete the email. Get it out of your inbox.

2. Delegate/Defer it: Decide if this can be handed off to someone better suited to deal with it, or put it in a READ LATER folder and check in during your set email time.

3. Delete it: If it’s a newsletter you no longer want or spam, unsubscribe and/or delete the email.

That’s it. It’s that simple. I’m on day 5 of this and it’s AMAZING!

It feels like a massive part of my day is under control now and I can focus more on my priorities instead of others that sneak in through my email and take over huge portions of my day. You can find all kinds of information online, on YouTube and in various books. Find what works for you.

I’m tempted to dive into when to read and deal with your emails, but I’ll save that exhilarating topic for later. I’ll probably also do some YouTube videos giving you a chance to watch me as I attempt to Get My Shit Together.

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