One touch one decision rule for email
by Clare
(Montesory)
How do you apply the one touch one decision rule to emails that are longer than 2 minutes? The reason I ask is that I was reading about David Allen's 2 minute rule that you talked about in https://www.mytimemanagement.com/the-two-minute-rule-for-email.html.
Kell's response This is a really good time management question that is relevant maintaining focus and taking control of the email.
The two minute rule is to respond to any email that takes less than 2 minutes to reply to.
Why?
Because it is not worth putting into your time management system.
But what about emails that are more than 2 minutes?
Well, when you are batching your emails you are just trying to get through as many as you can.
I actually put an egg timer for 30 minutes, and in 30 minutes I can get through about 50 emails.
This does not mean I answer 50 emails there and then, but I can say that I actually make a decision on when I shall answer the email.
And by the time my 1/2 hour is up, I have an empty inbox.
So what I am doing is triaging my email.
Anything that is 2 minutes or less is responded to. Anything that is more than 2 minutes is put into my time management system.
Now there are many different time management systems out there. But for me, for any email that is 5-10 minutes goes into my tasks.
Any email that is 15 minutes or more, goes into my calendar.
The important thing is that there are no loose ends. There is a big difference between saying I will do it tomorrow to saying that I will do it tomorrow at 10am (and be reminded of it by my system).
This is how I apply the one-touch one-decision rule to email.