To manage your inbox, you need dedication. You need a plan. you need Abbreviations. One such acronym is RAFT, which will literally keep you afloat in the sea of emails you receive every day. You can combine it with others, such as LIFO and 4D, to maximize its benefits, but first you need to know what to do with it on its own.
What is RAFT Email Management?
RAFT stands for:
easy! With this management system, you can take the time to read the email first, and then act on it however you want —if You need to, that is, before saving it somewhere or deleting it. That’s about it, but it works because it requires you to focus on each individual email and make an assessment on the spot, so you don’t miss anything.
Like the one-touch and two-touch rules, this rule requires you to open your emails as soon as they arrive. For me, this is the hardest part because it’s a habit you need to build. This approach reminds me of a more applicable productivity technique that I use often, the two-minute rule. When you think of something or are asked to deal with it, deal with it immediately. Again, it’s a habit that needs strengthening, but I like this approach for all kinds of productivity needs — and with RAFT, you have a clearly defined series of next steps after you open it.
How to make the most of RAFT
To achieve maximum benefits, you should combine this with another regimen or two. For example, combine RAFT with the LIFO method — last in, first out — which invites you to respond to newer emails before older ones. If you do this, you will always be working on meeting your most pressing needs instead of endlessly catching up on the things you let slip away. If something from the past is really important, you will receive a follow-up email and can do a RAFT afterwards. Otherwise, stick to your most urgent and most recent messages and read them, act on them, and then save or trash them afterwards.
What do you think so far?
When it comes to the representation part, you can enlist the reliable 4D method to help you. The four D’s are Delite, DHey, DElegant, or Defer, and they point out the four things you can do with any email. (The deletion here is redundant, since the word “trash” is part of RAFT, but it’s good to reinforce the idea that useless emails He should Be targeted.) Either do what the email says or delegate it to someone who can, but keep the process moving quickly. If you don’t end up forwarding it to someone else, delete it or file it. The basic rule in RAFT is what you need to do Something With every message, don’t ignore it.
As for the filing component of RAFT, make sure you have a great filing system beforehand. If you use Gmail, consider using labels as a more organized archive system, to make everything you choose to save easier to access. You can sort these mini-archives by date, by project, or by whatever makes sense for your retrieval, but be consistent about it so you don’t just relegate all your dealt with messages to email oblivion.