Editor’s note: In this edition of What’s Working Now, an AdvisorRADIO feature in which Horsesmouth members tell us about recent success they have had running and growing their businesses, we hear from advisor Deborah Fox, whose team has implemented a new email managements system that has boosted daily productivity and lowered team stress levels. You can hear the full interview by clicking the audio file below. The following article includes edited excerpts of Deborah’s comments.
Quick Overview
Advisor: Deborah Fox
San Diego, Calif.
Years in business: 30
Firm: Essential Planners
What’s working now: Implemented an email management program that has increased productivity and lowered stress.
I’ve been an advisor for about three decades and founded Essential Planners in San Diego. We specialize in holistic financial planning and wealth management using a flat-fee retainer system. I also have a consulting company, Fox Financial Planning Network (soon to be AdvisorTouch) that I started in 2009. We help firms work more efficiently by getting good technology in place, sharing workflow templates, and other practice management ideas. I work on both sides of the business but my heart is in the planning firm.
The email rabbit hole
This past year our team implemented a new email policy. We now only check email three times a day and our personal productivity has skyrocketed. Since beginning this, I realize how emails alone can be the number one cause of not completing one’s daily priority list.
The idea came up during a team meeting where we were brainstorming ways to be more efficient. One of my associate advisors brought up the point that when you do a quick check of your email you’ll often spend 30 minutes reading and responding without even realizing. It can bring you down a rabbit hole that you don’t even know you are in at the time and completely change the mode that you were in, especially if you were working productively and thought, “Well, I’ll just take a quick break.”
That email check usually isn’t a quick break and we get this dose of dopamine being able to check it quickly. We use dual monitors and we used to always have our email open on one of them. That alone kills productivity because you see something come in your inbox and it’s too tempting.
Our plan
We decided that we would only check email three times a day: at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. We needed to be able to check emails often enough where we could touch anything that needed to be addressed but not often enough that it would interfere with tasks that we needed to get done. In the morning when we come in, we do check our inboxes quickly to see if anything urgent came in overnight and needs to be addressed right away.
But the first real check is at 10 a.m., which is great for productivity. The morning is typically a time where you’re the sharpest and most productive. If you have project work or tasks that need to be completed you can usually do them faster in the morning. It’s also important to have some success early to provide momentum for the rest of the day.
Sometimes that means the first thing you do only takes five or 10 minutes, but that sets you up well for the day because you can check something off your list. Then you can go into project work and have the two-hour slot to get something done.
When we are not checking email, we are physically logged out of our email, and we put away our smartphones. We don’t want the temptation. There are so many people that are addicted to email and at the end of the day, they wonder why they didn’t get more done. We used to find that we were frustrated and felt guilty and more stressed because we started missing deadlines or having to do work last minute. It didn’t feel good and killed my creativity and problem-solving ability. Everyone was on board to try this out.
An organization system
We also implemented an email management process to use when checking email. We go through our inbox and flag the most important or urgent messages that need a response right away. And as we’re going through flagging those we get rid of spam or trash along the way. Next, we file the messages that do not require a response in the proper folders. Once everything is organized, we respond to the flagged emails first and then as many of the less urgent messages that are not flagged in the allotted 30 minutes.
Client feedback
We haven’t had any issues regarding this new policy with our clients. We’ve instructed them to give us a call if there is something they need to be done immediately. We explained that we’re trying a new productivity initiative so we can better serve them, and they understand. An added benefit that came out of that communication, believe it or not, is the reduced number of emails we receive every day.
So communication with your clients is crucial. For a firm that doesn’t have something like this in place now, I would suggest adding a couple sentences after your email signature about when you check email. This could help alleviate any issues—especially if your clients are used to getting a reply very quickly. You also need to be clear on how this policy helps them and that they should call you if something is urgent.
What are your priorities?
We’ve paired this email management process with a system to manage our daily priorities so the most important tasks at any time get completed. At the end of each day, we complete a six-item priority list for the next day.
There are two main benefits to this. Number one is that it forces us to figure out what we need to work on the next day. What will be the best use of our time? And then we prioritize those six things. We don’t always get through all six and if we don’t, we’ll start with those items the following day.
Putting that list together at the end of the day launches your nonconscious brain to start working on solving those tasks. Just by thinking it through you come in the next day knowing what you’re going to be doing and having already thought about it. We find that our workday goes so much smoother.
My staff thought I was crazy when I told them that. But I said, “Look. You don’t have to believe me, but just try it for a week.” And they were shocked at how much better and more productively they could work.
Pairing this priority management system and the email management system allows us to manage our calendars proactively. We know we have two hours before our first real email check to knock out as many priority items as possible or the most important one without being interrupted.
How to get started
My advice for others who want to implement something like this is to get your entire team involved—everyone has to buy in. Get everyone’s opinion—do they feel like email takes them down a rabbit hole? Then do a test for a week and come back together and get feedback. People are not going to be perfect right from the get-go. It takes some time, but once they start using it consistently, I think the results will make them fans of the system. If you’re more productive and more organized you’ll get more things done and be less stressed and overwhelmed—that’s all positive.