Eric

Email spinning out of control? Try these tips!

Email can be a massive time drain on our schedules and it seems like the more we send, the more they come in! Here are a few tips to help you BUST through the wall of email that keeps you from focusing on other things:

B is for Batch, don’t Blend.

It is tempting to let email blend into everything else you’re doing during the day. This will make you less focused all day long. Instead, set aside 3-4 specific times for email each day. You should spend 20-30 minutes during this window of time. Focus on responding to as many as you can during that time. This will also keep you from reading something and putting it off. “I don’t have time to think on it right now…” just means it will be coming back later!

Try these tips for managing your email more effectively.

U is for Unsubscribe.

Everyone these days is building a mailing list. They are more than happy to add you to it whether you ask for it or not. If you haven’t shopped at that store or restaurant in six months or if you haven’t read that newsletter in a year, why are you even on the list? Take the time to unsubscribe. I recently read from an organizer who suggested to pick one list to unsubscribe from EVERY DAY. This will save your inbox and head space. You might even reduce their send costs if they are in a service that charges based on addresses. (PLUS you will help their open percentage by removing a non-open from their list!)

S is for the all important Subject line.

Email conversations begin on one topic and then turn down a side road. Sometimes this goes on for three or more messages including multiple people. If you see this happening, change the subject line before you reply. Make it easier on everyone to find this discussion in their inboxes. You also might get someone’s attention when they thought it was a conversation that no longer warranted their input.

T is for Timing yourself.

Use an actual timer. Set it for 20 or 30 minutes and when it goes off, STOP. Move on to something different. Come back when you can allocate another 20 or 30 minutes. The countdown clock will motivate your internal deadline chip and you will find yourself knocking out more emails in less time!

Have you identified any other email hacks? Please share below.

Family Christmas traditions

One of my favorite things about the Christmas season is special memories built through a variety of traditional activities we do as a family each year. Some of these started 30+ years ago when I was a child and some are things Adena and I started with our girls. Here are a few of ours:

  1. imageChristmas ornaments – Our Christmas tree is decorated from top to bottom with ornaments, including some which date from the year I was born. We add to this collection each year with tokens from special activities done during the year (2016 added several from our cross country road trip). The ornament pictured here was made when I was a child by one of my aunts. The girls call him the “kissy ornament” because his mouth holds a Hershey’s kiss. They wake up each morning and check to see if he has new chocolate for their enjoyment. We unpack our boxes of ornaments every year and reminisce.
  3. imageSpecial events at church – Our church hosts an annual talent night as well as a Christmas Eve service. These are special times together with our extended church family and the new memories are made each year. One of my good friends/co-workers donned Santa garb this year to read Dr. Seuss’s timeless classic “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. This year, Sarah Beth also performed, playing Up on the Housetop, which her piano teacher helped her select and prepare.
  4. imageFamily built gingerbread house – I stress family built on this one because it might be a lot easier if I hid in the other room while Adena and the girls did this. Somehow my “perfectionist” tendencies make it challenging to participate when the girls don’t share my need for symmetry or straight lines. But I have to drop all of that when the box opens up because a grumpy dad who only wants to do it his way might as well skip the project altogether. And what would be the fun in that? This year, one of my girls wanted to draw architectural plans for the house before we started. I may be rubbing off on them more than I realize.
  5. Screen Shot 2015-12-20 at 10.21.17 PMThe Syfrett Express – This year marks the third year of one of our most recent family Christmas traditions. Adena and I pick a night where we surprise the girls with two “tickets” to get on board the Syfrett Express for a trip around town to look at Christmas lights. We play the Polar Express audio in the van while we drive around, plus we enjoy hot chocolate and a snack. Decorating houses seems to be growing less popular than it was when I was a kid, but we can always find a few homes where the owners are going for a Clark Griswold style award to see how many lights they can use in their front yard.
  6. Christmas morning – Each year, we get the girls up and take time, before we openfisher-price-nativity-set-2327358-01 presents and unpack stockings, to read the Luke 2 narrative of Christ’s birth and remember the real reason for the season. Every year that goes by, December seems busier, the world seems more commercialized, and it seems harder to prioritize the thing that we know is most important at Christmas – worshipping Jesus. Setting aside this time, as well as others through Advent readings and a special calendar, is key to portraying a Christmas that is more about Him than about tinsel and tags, promotions and packages.

What are your family’s Christmas traditions? How do you help your children keep Jesus central to Christmas?

Related posts:

  1. The Neighborhood Christmas Parade is another of our highlights. (2016 Update: they hosted a Holiday Festival this year where Sarah Beth sold handmade bags.)
  2. Celebrating Immanuel: God with us
  3. Praying for Three Wise Gifts

Counting down to December 31

time wisely quote

We have just one month left!. And December often feels like the busiest month of the year. But there is still time to measure some progress on the goals you set for the year.

Hopefully you wrote some things down in January or at some point earlier this year. You said – “this is what I want this year to be about.”

You could look now and say – “well, I missed it” OR “sure, I got some of that done, but not nearly enough.”

But if you give up, you are missing the fact that there are still more than 30 days left. Maybe twenty or less if you factor in all the parties and holiday activities. That is still something!

Tips for last-minute progress

So here are my tips for a last-minute, last-ditch effort to make progress toward your annual goals:

  1. Look at them! If you don’t look back at them until you’re debriefing in January, you can’t gain any more ground.
  2. Which goal did you set that no longer seems important?  Did your priorities change mid-year?  Did other circumstances dictate that you should write one off? Cross that one off your list and focus on what’s really key to you.
  3. Is there anything that is almost finished, but just needs a little more push? Can you schedule time to finish that out?calendar
  4. Which one isn’t nearly done, but you could accomplish more than you have so far? What two actions would improve you from an F to a C? It may not be an A, but a C is certainly better.
  5. Which one is honestly a loss? There are plenty of goals that you can’t knock out in give or take 20 days. But take a few minutes to think about this. Why did you not make any progress? Is there anything standing in the way of progress in this area? Maybe you can do something to address the obstacles, even if you can’t push toward the goal.
  6. Write down a few things related to your goals that you can do to make progress. Block out time in your calendar to get them done. December 31 will feel better because you did!

Here are a few things on my list:

  1. I haven’t hired a Marketing Director yet, but I have some really good prospects. How can I use the 5 remaining weeks to lock a plan in for starting the new year strong?
  2. One of my goals for the year was a complete overhaul of our Employee Handbook. I already collected a list of things that need to be addressed. I can’t get a final version perfect, but blocking out one day would make it a lot better than it is right now. What about five hours next week, plus an hour a week or a section a week until it’s completely done? I can’t finish by January 1, but I’m pretty sure February 1 would do it.
  3. I have a few areas that I was hoping to make some progress on, but realized during the year that I don’t have the talent to cover this personally. How about if I try to allocate budget resources to hire for this one in the first quarter? I can’t do the job in the next five weeks, but if I wait until the new year to think about it, the budget won’t be there.

What can you do?

The point here is to identify – what can you do? Rome wasn’t built in a day. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. Every journey begins with a single step. I could go on. What can you do today? What can you do with an hour next week? What can you do if you take a minute now and carve out time on your calendar?