standardized pricing and order process, etc. Indicate that, for those clients whose needs are incompatible with these new policies, you are happy to introduce other providers. “But what if my largest customer consumes all of my time?” Recognize that (1) without time, you cannot scale your company (and, oftentimes, life) beyond that customer, and (2) people, even good people, will unknowingly abuse your time to the extent that you let them. Set good rules for all involved to minimize back-and-forth and meaningless communication.
11. Deadlines Over Details—Test Reliability Before Capability
Skills are overrated. Perfect products delivered past deadline kill companies faster than decent products delivered on time. Test someone’s ability to deliver on a specific and tight deadline before hiring them based on a dazzling portfolio. Products can be fixed as long as you have cash flow, and bugs are forgiven, but missing deadlines is often fatal. Calvin Coolidge once said that nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent; I would add that the second most common is smart people who think their IQ or resume justifies delivering late.
The Holy Grail: How to Outsource the Inbox and Never Check E-mail Again
What if you never had to check e-mail again? If you could hire someone else to spend countless hours in your inbox instead of you?
This isn’t pure fantasy. For the last 12 months, I’ve experimented with removing myself from the inbox entirely by training other people to behave like me. Not to imitate me, but to think like me.
Here’s the upshot: I get more than 1,000 e-mails a day from various accounts.89 Rather than spending 6–8 hours per day checking e-mail, which I used to do, I can skip reading e-mail altogether for days or even weeks at a time … all within 4–10 minutes a night.
Let me explain the basics, followed by tips and exact templates for outsourcing your own inbox.
1. I have multiple e-mail addresses for specific types of e-mail (blog readers vs. media vs. friends/family, etc.). tim@ … is the default I give to new acquaintances, which goes to my assistant.
2. 99% of e-mail falls into predetermined categories of inquiries with set questions or responses (my “rules” document is at the bottom of this post—feel free to steal, adapt, and use). My assistant(s) checks and clears the inbox at 11 A.M. and 3 P.M. pst.
3. For the 1% of e-mail that might require my input for next actions, I have a once-daily phone call of 4–10 minutes at 4 P.M. pst with my assistant.
4. If I’m busy or traveling abroad, my assistant leaves the action items in numerical order on my voicemail, which I can respond to in a bullet-point e-mail. These days, I actually prefer the voice-mail option and find that it forces my assistant to be more prepared and more concise.
Each night (or early the next morning), I’ll listen to my assistant’s voicemail via Skype and simultaneously write out the next actions (1. Bob: Tell him that … 2. Jose in Peru: Ask him for … 3. Speaking in NC: Confirm …, etc.) in a Skype chat or quick e-mail. How long does the new system take? 4–10 minutes instead of 6–8 hours of filtering and repetitive responses.
If you only have one e-mail account, I recommend using a desktop program like Outlook or Mail instead of a web-based program like Gmail for a simple reason: If you see new items in your inbox, you’ll check them. Like they say in AA: If you don’t want to slip, don’t go where it’s slippery. This is why I have a private personal account that I use for sending e-mail to my assistant and communicating with friends. It’s almost always empty.
E-mail is the last thing people let go of. Fortune 500 CEOs, best-selling authors, celebrities—I know dozens of top performers who delegate everything but e-mail, which they latch onto as something only they can do. “No one can check my e-mail for me” is the unquestioned assumption, or “I answer every e-mail I receive” is the unquestioned bragging right that keeps them in front of a computer for 8–12 hours at a stretch. It’s not fun, and it keeps them from higher-impact or more rewarding activities.
Get over yourself. I had to. Checking e-mail isn’t some amazing skill that you alone possess.
In fact, checking e-mail is like everything else: a process.
How you evaluate and handle (delete vs. archive vs. forward vs. respond) e-mail is just a series of questions you ask yourself, whether consciously or subconsciously. I have a document called “Tim Ferriss Processing Rules,” to which my assistants add rules when I send them a note via e-mail with “ADD TO RULES” in the subject. Over the course of a week or two with a virtual assistant (VA), you will end up with an externalized set of rules that reflect how your brain processes e-mail. It often shows you how haphazard your processing is. I’ve included my “rules” here to save you some time. A few tips:
1. Setting appointments and meetings takes a lot of time. Have your assistant set things up for you in Google Calendar. I input my own items via my Palm Z22 or iCal, then use Spanning Sync and Missing Sync for Palm OS to sync everything. On my uberlight Sony VAIO, which I still use for travel, I use CompanionLink for Google Calendar. I suggest batching meetings or calls in one or two set days, with 15 minutes between appointments. Scattering them throughout the week at odd times just interrupts everything else. (Update 2009: The Palm Z22 has been discarded, and I now use a 13-inch MacBook and BusySync to synchronize iCal with Google Calendar.)
2. If you jump in your assistant’s inbox and answer anything, BCC them so they are aware that you handled it.
3. Expect small problems. Life is full of compromises, and it’s necessary to let small bad things happen if you want to get huge good things done. There is no escape. Prevent all problems and get nothing done, or accept an allowable level of small problems and focus on the big things.
Ready to jump in and test the holy grail? Here are the steps.
1. Determine exactly which accounts you will use and how you want them to respond to (or just categorize or purge) e-mail for you.
2. Find a virtual assistant.
3. Test for reliability before skill set. Have the top three candidates do something on tight deadline (24 hours) before hiring them and letting them in your inbox.
4. Use a probationary period of 2–4 weeks to test the waters and work out the problems. Again: There will be problems. It will take a good 3–8 weeks to get to real smooth sailing.
5. Design your ideal lifestyle and find something to do other than let your brain fester in the inbox. Fill the void.
TIM FERRISS PROCESSING RULES
[Note the Q&A format—some of the questions are my standard points for VAs, some have been added by my assistant, who put together this document.]
[I often have exec-level assistants manage 4–5 other “sub VAs” who handle certain repetitive tasks, often at half the exec VA’s hourly rate. The exec VA takes on an office manager or, in some cases, COO-level function.]
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Deadlines are extremely important. Be Aware of them, and Be Punctual!
If Tim says “Call me back,” CALL HIM BACK, do not send an e-mail. This is an important point, as Tim does
