Should You Change The Way You Use Email?

This is one of the most useful productivity hacks I’ve ever seen. And what strikes me the most is that it has been around since 2007! Many great things have been around longer than we think as the famous bridge below.

How many minutes do you spend every day just reading, classifying and sending emails? Probably a lot. Having a clear strategy to deal with emails is critical as you move up the corporate ladder. Efficiency is a very useful skill to have as an engineer too.

Iron Bridge in Coalbrookdale, England. 2019.

Before

I used to classify emails by subject or project. So as months went by, I started needing more and more folders, subfloders and sub-subfolders.

Since some emails required an immediate response and others don’t, I also had to flag some of them. I had to create a double classification: one based on subject and another based on urgency.

If I received an urgent email which requires a response by the end of the week, I had to flag it and store it into the relevant folder. But borders between folders were not always clear. They tend to be blurry.

As a civil engineer, you might have a folder called ICE to save your Chartership-related emails. You might also have a Volunteering folder to save emails about events you attend as a volunteer. What if you get an email about a volunteering event organised by the ICE? Should you save it in both folders? Should you create a subfolder in you ICE folder called Volunteering? You see the issue.

 

Now

I got to a point were this approach was unmanageable. A friend told me about another system called Inbox Zero. It basically had one goal: keep your inbox empty at all times.

That concept sounded great but, how I do that? After reading about this system I’ve outlined some principles for you to follow. If you prefer, you can see the full version on Youtube.

1. You should classify all your emails by urgency and not by subject. This means you don’t need subfolders but only folders to differentiate what needs a response today, this week or this month.
2. Anything that is not actionable by you should go to Archive. If it requires an action from your side, then you should save it on a folder called Today, This week or This month according to its urgency.
3. If you can reply to an email in less than 2 minutes you should do it. If not, you should decide where to save it: today, this week, this month or archive.
4. Every email you can delete, you should delete it. It’s unbelievable the amount of irrelevant emails you get per week. Don’t archive them if you can delete them.
5. Your subject line is everything. The more descriptive and specific your subject line is, the easier it will be to find emails later.

 

This is how your inbox should look like.

 

Critics could say: “OK, but what if you want to find an old email related to a specific project? You have to go to Archive and dive into thousands of emails.” True. But this is why the subject line on your emails should be the most important thing. Because this will be what you’ll use as search terms in the future. Plus, unless you have less than 10 emails per folder, you’ll have to use the search function anyway. As long as your subject line is descriptive enough, there’s no difference between searching amongst 1000 or 10000 emails.

Inbox zero might not be perfect but it’s definitely the best email management strategy I’ve found. Give it a try and let me know your thoughts.

Which Are The Most Useful Skills For A Civil Engineer?

Is it being able to solve triple integrals? Is it solving designing steel structures in less than 30 minutes? Is it remembering formulas from the Eurocodes? Definitely not.

A strong focus on analytical thinking for years can prevent civil engineers from developing other abilities. This can be a weakness for us in comparison with people from other backgrounds. Emotional intelligence could be one of our areas for improvement.

How To Win Friends And Influence People is probably one of the best books I’ve ever read and provides good insights on this. The amount of value and useful concepts per page is insane. And what amazes me the most is that it was written in 1936!

Some concepts might seem obvious to you but I have always wondered why some of these ideas are not taught at public schools. Same happens with economic concepts such as debt, credit and investments which are not taught at schools even though they will be far more useful in your life than remembering book titles written by a famous author.

This book allows you to better understand human nature and people’s behaviours which is useful for your personal and professional relationships.

I’m going to focus what I think is the main idea of the book:

Everybody wants to feel a sense of importance.

Believe it or not, this is the main force that moves the world. Dale Carnegie found out that people who truly understand this concept have a huge influencing power.

 

Treat everybody by their name.

Carnegie says that:

A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

It is unbelievable how many positive reactions you get when you treat people by their name. Charismatic people are able to remember hundreds of names and include them in their conversations. This make us to immediately like them.

We get a sense of significance when people we have just met are able to remember our name. It’s silly but true.

 

Encourage others to talk about themselves.

People don’t care about your problems, they only care about their problems. Rough but true.

People don’t want to listen to your stories, they want you to listen to theirs. And not only to listen but also engage, ask follow-up questions and show interest.

How many times you had a conversation where you are just waiting for the other person to stop talking for you to say whatever you want to say? It’s unbelievable. If you truly analyse all the conversations you have during the day, you’ll be surprised by the conclusions. So many conversations where there is zero active listening. Just 2 people saying stuff to each other without considering what the other person said previously.

For instance, you’re having lunch with your colleague and she’s talking about her last trip to Australia. How likely are you to mention that you or your friend have been in Australia too a few years ago? Instead, you could make the other person feel important by asking her about her trip: Which areas did you visit? What were your favourite spots?

It’s crazy the amount of conversations we turn into talking about ourselves instead of becoming interested in other people’s lives. Why? Because we all want to have that feeling of significance. And obviously you too.

 

Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

You only learn new things while you’re listening. Not while you’re talking. This is also related to one of the 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.

It’s about having enough humility and self-confidence to accept your own limited knowledge and the value of the other person’s ideas.

In mathematical terms, technical knowledge may be a necessary but not sufficient condition to succeed in the civil engineering industry.