I attended one of your webinars last month (hosted by CSI), and wanted to thank you for a couple of your ideas...
Most notably, helping me to take control of my inbox. During the webinar, my inbox had more than 2,800 messages in it. As you pointed out, I can do one of three things with each message: 1. Delete it as spam or junk. 2. Turn it into an action item by dragging it to my tasks bar or doing it immediately (3-minute rule), or 3. Archive it in a folder for future reference.

I am happy to report that my inbox currently has one e-mail in it.

I attended your workshop yesterday morning and have to say it was the most worthwhile workshop I’ve ever attended. All of the material is practical, easily applied, and something I wish I had learned years ago. I will continue to implement ideas into my workspace and email and look forward to seeing the results.

I am so glad that I sat in your seminar. I am “the email beast queen”, having over 5 email accounts that I have lost complete control over. I am happy to report that at least in my work email account I only have 3 emails showing. I made sure first thing this morning I corrected one account. I might make it a goal to do one a day until they are all under control. I will also be sharing this with my office as some of us leave over 500 emails in the inbox. Thank you for your time and assistance.

Dear Mr. Dean: Thank you so much for the great seminar you gave at Michigan State. Within a week of attending your seminar, I reduced my "new mail" box to ZERO by deleting a lot on unneeded messages and making a lot of e-mail folders in the cabinet. It is SO GREAT to open my e-mail and see only the new ones – not a bunch of old ones clogging up my mind!! I also turned off the automatic notification feature and now just look at my e-mail when I want to. I don't get tempted by that little pop-up message!

Your class was fantastic and has really reduced the stress in my life.

THANK YOU!

Thanks Randy! It was an amazing session! Probably the most helpful and worthwhile I’ve ever attended. I've cut my Inbox in half since the session – your techniques really work! I'm loving the Outlook task function too, which I never really used too much before.

Randy,
I wanted to email you to say thank you for teaching people how to keep up on their email beast. I saw you last year before I started my job as a Hotel Sales Manager and begun using your method as soon as I started. My inbox and sent box always have zero – that’s right, ZERO emails – in it by 9:00 am on Monday morning. I receive at least 100 plus e-mails a week.

Your system has allowed me to file my emails in sub folders, and by clearing my inbox and sent box every Monday, I enter the email content in my client database. This allows me to keep up on each conversation I have had in order to better serve my customers. On top of that, all the information is very accessible should I need it for any reason.

My inbox is now arranged by date and my subfolders are arranged by person. This allows for a fast search by clicking my market folder and finding the clients name, and then I can recall all emails by those clients.

Randy – Your system has really helped me tame my email beast.

Thanks a ton!

I think that I had about 4 hours of sleep last night. I kept waking up and thinking about how I was going to re-organize my office at work and at home. Well, I have finished re-arranging my office at work. I added another desk to set up the “cockpit style” office layout. I have set up my Outlook to archive messages and to auto delete them after 6 months (self cleaning system… wonderful!). Your 3-minute rule for working on email, deleting them, or just moving them into folders is just great (actually, borrowed that idea from David Allen). I drag-and-dropped a couple of my emails on my task list too.

I had 114 messages waiting for me in my inbox today and I was able to move through them quickly. I also like the idea of only checking my email 4 times a day. I have turned off my “blings” and “ghosts”. Getting rid of the email interruptions has been so nice. I have set up a second email account, which is all I need right now. I have also used your idea to put people on hold on the phone and to jot down the next thing to do on my current project. I have been able to accomplish quite a bit of work today even though I am tired from not getting enough sleep last night. I am going to look over the handouts again in the morning. Tomorrow will be phenomenal…!

I really enjoyed your very upbeat training class here ...
I immediately started applying your tips that day. I am down to ZERO emails in my inbox (from approx. 250), and I am going to try extremely hard to read them, take the appropriate action, then file them in my personal folders. Now I won't be as stressed out when I go on vacation.

Randall brought out many fine points for managing e-mail ...
... and office organization that I had not seen previously. Even just one or two of these would have made the course valuable.