Stop Should-ing on Yourself

Myth – I should read everything that enters my in-box. Why is it that we feel obligated to pay such obsessive attention to both our paper and email inboxes? And why might we feel overwhelmed and/or guilty if we don’t get to respond to it all? Most likely it’s because we feel obligated to respond to the person who took the time, energy and/or trouble to send us the communication! We feel privileged that someone out there wants us.

Truth – There’s no need to “should” on yourself! It only makes you feel bad. And you are the one who can control this! If you can do even one of the following ideas, you “should” have no reason to “should” on yourself ever again!

  1. “Should” should only be used for future tense, not past tense. When you say you should do something in the future like, “I should attend this afternoon’s meeting,” then you still have some control over this happening. If you say you should have done something in the past like, “I should have attended yesterday’s afternoon meeting”, then you make yourself feel badly and “should” on yourself. Keep it in the future!
  2. Allot a specific amount to time to deal with your communications. Think of your communications as part of your scheduled day, not something you will do when or if time allows. This means to plan specific time to check and respond to your email, preferably two to three times per day. How much time you allot depends on your workload. Some people only need 15 minutes while others may need two hours to deal with the most timely issues.
  3. Prioritize to whom you respond first. If you need to respond to your boss in a timely manner, then do so. But if most of your communications from your boss are for your information only, then leave those messages for later. If you have some messages that always end up in the bottom of the pile, then those are ones that are of no value to you and should be deleted without regret.
  4. Autofile email and paper messages in useful folders. If your software has the ability, consider directing certain emails to pre-made folders (see Tip #5 on how to use your Rules Wizard feature). You can set-up paper folders in your office for your most pressing communications, e.g. contracts, pending meetings, follow-up communications, and so on, so you know where things should go.
  5. Learn the quick delete functions. For any program, click on the first message you want to delete, hold the shift key down and then click on the last one you want to delete to highlight the group of emails you want to delete. Then click DELETE! For MS Outlook users, consider using the keyboard shortcut of CTRL-D to delete messages instead of using the mouse click. For paper, the recycle bin or garbage is the quick delete function!
  6. Remember your time is valuable. You may not have time to answer all that comes in but if you are truly only answering those communications of greatest value to you, then you will survive.

Wishing you less “should” in your life!

Get "Abby's Top 10 Strategies for Slaying Your Email Dragon" for more on this topic!

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Abby Marks Beale is founder of The Corporate Educator, a professional speaking and training company specializing in helping with busy people work smarter, faster and just plain better. Go to www.TheCorporateEducator.com.

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Rev It Up Reading is a subsidiary of The Corporate Educator. Since 1988, we have been teaching faster, more effective reading to busy professionals, educators and students in a wide variety of corporations, associations and schools. We offer speaking services, on-site and online training programs, teleclasses, books and audio recordings about how to manage any reading workload and how to read better and faster. ALL of our training is practical and immediately useful to your life and work.