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Breaking the Backlog Cycle: Never Get Behind Again

Breaking the Backlog Cycle: Never Get Behind Again

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 Backlogs. We all have them. But, how do you clear them and then prevent them from happening again? That’s what we’re looking at today. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Getting Things Done With Linda Geerdink Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Time Sector System 5th Year Anniversary The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 367 Hello, and welcome to episode 368 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Organising your work, creating lists of things to do, and managing your projects in your notes are all good common-sense productivity practices. However, none of these are going to be helpful if you have huge backlogs of admin, messages, and emails creating what I call a low-level anxiety buzz. You’re going to be stressed and distracted and in no place to be at your very best. What’s more, this can become a chronic problem if those backlogs are growing. This is when critical things are going to get missed. I’m often surprised to get an email from someone asking me if they can have a discount code for an early-bird discount that expired three or four weeks previously. I mean, come on. If it’s taking you three to four weeks to get to an email—even if you consider it to be a low-value email—there’s a serious problem in your system. (Or more likely, you don’t have a system at all.) So this week, I want to share with you a few ideas that can help you regain control of these backlogs and, more importantly, prevent them from happening again. So, with that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Wyatt. Wyatt asks, hi Carl, how would you help someone who is backlogged beyond belief. I’ve got over 3,000 emails in my inbox, and my team are still waiting for me to finish their appraisals from last year! I feel so stuck. Please help. Hi Wyatt. Thank you for your question. Sorry to hear you feel swamped. I know it can be a horrible place to be. Before we begin, let me explain the three types of backlogs we all have to deal with. The first is the growing backlog. This one is the worst because it’s getting bigger and unless you take action immediately, it’s going to overwhelm you. These kinds of backlogs will always be your priority. The next type of backlog is the static backlog. It’s not growing, but it’s there and it’s on your mind. It needs to be dealt with, but the urgency isn’t as big as a growing backlog. And then there’s the shrinking backlog. These are the best because if they are shrinking, they’ll soon disappear altogether. Now, one of the most common areas of our work that backlogs is our email. The last statistics I saw show that on average, people are getting 90+ emails a day. If you need an average of 30 seconds to deal with each email—which I know is low—that’s around forty-five minutes to deal with them. Do you have forty-five minutes today to deal with your email? Remember, that’s a small amount of time for each email. It’s likely you’ll need more than thirty seconds for most of those mails. Now the good news. If you’re starting with a backlog of over 3,000 emails, many of those emails will no longer require a response. The moment’s passed. What I would suggest is you take any emails older than a month, and move then to a folder called “Old In-box”. While my instinct it to tell you to delete them, I’ve never come across anyone courageous enough to do it. Although, if you think about it. Deleting them gives you a perfect excuse if someone follows you up—“sorry, I don’t seem to be able to find your email. Could you resend it?” Doing this means you’ve cut your list by a large margin. What’s left can be processed. Email is a two step process. Just like we used to do with regular letters. Open your post box, take out the mail and sort it between letters you need to read or respond to and throw away or file anything you don’t need to act on. And by the way, nobody left their mail in the mail box. Why do we do that with email? With email, it’s the same process. Clear your inbox. As you clear ask yourself two questions: What is it? What do I need to do with it? If you need to read or reply to an email, then move it to a folder called “Action This Day”. If you don’t need to do anything with it, either delete or archive it. This is the processing stage. All you are doing is processing. You are not replying or reading. That comes ...
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