Our penultimate week opened like a normal week of workplace strategy coaching, with a question on my week.
‘How’s your week been?’
I answer honestly.
‘Good, thanks’. Because it genuinely was. The level of self-awareness I’ve gained from these weeks have been indescribable – but I will attempt to describe it…
‘I talk about how I put last week’s conversation into practice, along with making a note of how my newfound positive attitude has contributed to the past few days’ calls and to-dos.’
Then I mentioned the 3-figure email pile-up in my inbox which are all uncategorised. I waiver slightly after this point. It was genuinely good, aside from the unaccounted email collection.
‘‘Good… apart from my horrendous email management skills’.
Dyslexia Workplace Strategy Coaching is more than coaching a mindset; it’s coaching a way of working that influences the mindset. We used the first few sessions to talk mindset, with some sprinklings of how to manage certain emotions, but workplace strategy coaching can be used prescriptively too.
After spending half the session discussing the past week, we moved on to the long-awaited email management strategy.
The great thing about this is that the strategy we built it tailored to me. And it shows there are countless ways you can come to the same conclusion. You can be organised, concise and on top of everything, whilst looking completely different to the next person.
I’m not going to sugarcoat this. My email inbox became the stuff of nightmares. With multiple 10s of emails coming from different sources each day – most junk and email threads I’m featured on for visibility – I need a way of managing this that doesn’t take too much time.
My coach asked me how I normally go about tackling emails, to which I responded with the plan I have currently. I spend 30 minutes at the start of each day going through my emails and creating actions from these and other sources.
With the number of emails that I have coming through daily, 30 minutes only scratches the surface, so the coach suggested I spend an extra 30 minutes at the end of the day.
With this extra time, it’ll give me the headspace to go through my emails methodically and carefully. I tend to miss emails. Quite often, people respond to their emails days after they sent them asking for a follow-up. I hope I’m not shooting myself in the foot when I say this, but, this is probably the number 1 thing I need help with!
Time freed up. Now it’s time to look at my emails.
My coach recommended I be less specific with what the folders contain. For example, instead of having folders for everyone on the senior management team, I have one single one. All of these emails will be important, and they’ll be on the same level of authority, so it’s best to group these for convenience.
There are levels above that I’ve implemented for when I check emails throughout the day. My coach suggested I create these folders:
Marked as interesting
Marked as to follow up
Marked as urgent
I’ve written this blog out in chunks as I experiment with this system. I must admit, at first, I kept having to actively remind myself that I have this system to help me. Before it was implemented, I either jumped on emails straight away (putting my other work on hold) or I forgot about them and never picked them up.
Now, it’s a different story. I place them in the folder whether I want to action them today or in the future. I check them every morning and evening and if I have a spare 10 minutes during the day. Because I know they’re there ready to harvest, I don’t have this ‘all or nothing’ mentality.
Things are piecing together right now, making the last session one to pull this all in – watch for the final instalment next week!
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Armelle works in the data industry as a marketing professional, alongside running Girls with Dyslexia where she advocates for dyslexia awareness, support and empowerment. Her most recent accomplishments include speaking at the Dyslexia Show 2023, and has been featured in the Indeed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report 2023.
Armelle was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia during her final year of Loughborough University studying BSc International Business, where the transition from study to work life prompted her to embark on her Girls with Dyslexia journey.
