All jokes aside, Mackay is considered a sales and business guru who has shared his selling secrets with millions of people through his bestselling books, including his latest, “The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World.” He has also chronicled how job seekers can use his networking and selling strategies to find a job with “Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door.”

In the second part of this interview with Anita Bruzzese, Mackay offers his advice to newbies in the business world.

AB: There seems to be growing optimism about the economy. In your opinion, how should people best position themselves in their business or their career as things start to improve?

HM:  I would answer this question the same way I would for the last 25 years, no matter what was happening: You must go to school for all your life.

What I mean by this is that you would hate to have major surgery with a surgeon who graduated in 2002 and didn’t keep up on the latest technology. You must continually enhance your skills throughout your career.  Go to night school to enhance your computer skills. Go to Toastmaster’s International to enhance your presentation skills. You’ve got to keep enhancing your skills.

AB: Employers are being cautious about hiring. What words of advice would you have for the job seeker who may have been looking for work for a year or more?

HM:  I think there are some things these jobs seekers can do to make themselves more successful.

First, they need to really know the market and territory. Even though they’re using LinkedIn to network, 50 percent  to 75 percent of jobs still come through personal contacts. So, you’ve got to really get out there and meet people in your area or industry.

Second, I would immediately volunteer. Do something you’re passionate about. The biggest problems for nonprofits are money, money and money. So go knock on doors and make sales calls for these organizations. Not only will you start to feel better about yourself because you’re out there meeting people, but you’re also building a network.

Third, there are more people willing to help you than you think. Never say no for another person. Let them be the one to say no. The dumbest question is the one you never asked. I’ve mentored over 500 people, so don’t be afraid to ask someone to help you.

Fourth, get all the advice you can from career counselors or self-help books on the mistakes other people made in trying to get a job. Learn what you should be doing.

If they (job seekers) do all those things, their probability of getting a job goes dramatically up.

AB: Can you talk about some of the challenges faced by older job seekers?

HM: I think the age group of 45 to 65 has been hardest hit. It may sound corny, but unequivocally, they have to reinvent themselves.

You cannot solve a problem unless you first admit you have one, and about a third of them won’t even admit they have a problem. They still think just because their company closed up they can stay in the same industry, go across town to a competitor and get a job. That’s not going to happen.

So what can they do? They know one skill basically. They’ve got to go back to school. They may have to get an MBA, go to a career counselor, network – do all the things we’ve been talking about.

AB: A lot of career advice surrounds the idea that you’ve got to have a personal brand and promote yourself more to others. But a lot of people don’t have the chutzpah to do this. What would you say to them?

HM: They don’t teach chutzpah in school, so you’ve got to invest in yourself. Read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” You’ve got to promote yourself and meet other people. You can’t be successful by yourself. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.

AB: What lessons do you feel we can all learn – and should never forget – from the past couple of years?

HM: First, if you’ve had a job, you should be pretty damn grateful.

Second, you have to be prepared to be fired from Day 1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Let me give you an example: Lou Holtz was a 130-pound weakling and had no football skills when he decided to try out for the team in a small town in Ohio. He didn’t really have a chance to make the team except for one thing. He decided to learn all 11 positions. If he had learned only one position, he would have had to wait for that player to be injured. But if he knows all 11 positions, he knows the odds improve.  That also helped later make him a great coach.

My point is that if you’re going to be on an employer’s payroll, then you better learn to be a Jack of all trades. Learn about all the different parts of a business.

AB: You’ve been in business for a long time. Where do you get your energy and enthusiasm from?

HM: I have no negative friends. I’ve left people behind who got negative as they got older. I’ve carefully picked my friends – those people who have done something with their lives, who are relevant, who have continued to learn, stayed optimistic and continue to make a difference. I surround myself with successful people who can’t wait to get up in the morning, just like me. I constantly read or listen to motivational books or tapes.

AB: Do you ever think you’ll retire?

HM: No, no, no! Retirement is a dirty word.

Related posts:

1. Harvey Mackay on What it Takes to Win (Pt 1)
2. Is Job Seeking Pointless During the Holidays?
3. Do You Have a Personal Brand?

Perhaps it was the one about eating healthy. (Who can resist the double chocolate chip cookies someone brought to the break room?) Or, maybe it was your determination to be nicer to your irritating co-worker – until she asked if you had gained weight over the holidays.

Whatever your track record on resolutions, there is still plenty of time to make important ones regarding your career and business success for this year. If you’re a little worried about making your resolve stick or don’t know how to plot out your success, consider these ideas from others:

Deborah Shane, a career branding strategist and author of Career Transition: “I don’t make resolutions. I create intentions and then set myself up for things to happen. For this year, I’m going to qualify my time even more and say ‘thanks for thinking of me, but no.’”

Jason Seiden, co-founder of Ajax Social Media and author of Beyond Social: “I am going to get actionable. I looked at every aspect of my business and attached specific numbers to any area that didn’t already have them.”

Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding and author of Me: 2.0: “My big new year’s resolution for 2012 is to meet new people, get a new hobby and join a few organizations. When you run a virtual company, and you’re introverted, it can be hard to remove yourself and meet new people in real life.”

Many career resolutions can center around such ideas that will work for anyone, no matter the industry. Consider these as part of your plan this year:

1. Step outside your comfort zone.

Schawbel is known for his social media savvy, but his resolution is aimed at not only helping his professional life by making more face-to-face contacts, but enriching his personal life as well.

“My transition from hermit to socialite won’t happen immediately,” he says. “I’m slowly getting myself out there by paying for local events, which will force me out, and committing to go out during the week.” He’s even planned for potential backsliding on his new plan, and will join a few groups with longer commitments “so I don’t just hide behind my computer after a few weeks of being outgoing.”

Don’t look at networking as something where you just “wing it.” If you create a plan – to join your local chamber of commerce or attend an industry event to meet certain people – you’re much more likely to follow through, especially if you commit to an event on a certain day. Registration fees and airline tickets that are nonrefundable are a good way to force yourself to attend an event.

2. Don’t sit on the sidelines.

Shane says she has already nabbed a couple of projects for this year, but plans to be more proactive in going after work. She says she will ask those she already interacts with “to hire me to do things that I specialize in that they might be thinking of outsourcing.”

Seiden says he also plans to be more focused in his business. “The last few years have included a lot of wheel spinning. January for me has been a rework of my strategic plan, including the delegation or elimination of anything that isn’t related to my No. 1 priority.”

Amanda Krauss, a web developer, says she has decided to also revitalize her business by reorganizing her web presence, continuing to learn more about mobile design and making more use of Twitter. And, oh yeah, “translate a joke a day from the Philogelos,” a 2,000-year-old joke book written in Greek. (Krauss is a former Vanderbilt University assistant professor who taught cultural history, humor theory and Latin.)

3. Find time for you.

The last few years have been stressful for everyone, even if you have had a good job or a successful business. Admit it: Didn’t you sometimes have nightmares that the whole thing fell apart and you couldn’t earn a nickel? (Or maybe the dream was that you were standing in the unemployment line. In your underwear. Whatever…it’s your dream.) The point is that no one can keep up that pace without cracking at the seams. As Seiden notes: “Starting a business is stressful, but stress never solved anything. I work better when I’m relaxed. So I’m committed to my workouts and family time – no more calendar creep!”

Schawbel says that he believes getting away from his computer and meeting new people “is going to have a great impact on my life, both personally and professionally. I feel like it will inspire me, give me more points of references for my articles, and more experiences that will make life enjoyable.”

4. Get the right things done.

Are you driving across town just to use a 25-cent coupon? Do you have items in your laundry basket that say “hand wash only?” Now consider whether these activities are the best use of your valuable time. If not, ditch them. Shane says she plans to be ruthless in unsubscribing from those who put her on email lists without her permission. If you have difficulty eliminating time wasters from your schedule, consider using time-tracking tools such as Toggl.

Remember, even if you don’t succeed in meeting all your new year’s resolutions, don’t forget there’s no rule that says you can’t make them throughout the year. It’s never too late to spur yourself into greater career and business success.

Related posts:

1. Forget New Year’s Resolutions: Here Are Five Effective Steps To Get Your Business On Track for 2011
2. Social Media & Your Career: Lead or Follow
3. Will You be Marketable in 20 Years?

Managers often have two big worries in this situation: How transparent should you be about the circumstances surrounding the employee’s departure, and how might news of a firing impact other employees’ morale?

As for transparency, you want to balance the need to explain why the employee is suddenly no longer part of your team with protecting that person’s privacy and dignity. So you might simply let others know the most important basics:  “Today was Amanda’s last day. We wish her the best. Her projects will be temporarily handled by Luis until we hire a replacement, which we hope will happen with six weeks.”

Your staff will generally understand that you’re not going to share every detail with them in cases like this. But if people press you for more details and they don’t have a true need to know, it’s fine to say that things didn’t work out but remind them that if they were in the employee’s shoes, they wouldn’t want those details shared.

As for morale, the key here is ensuring that your staff understands how performance problems are handled. After all, you may know that you had numerous conversations with the employee before letting her go, and gave her warnings and chances to improve, but since your staff isn’t privy to that, it’s important that they know how you handle these situations in general – since otherwise they may worry that firings happen out of the blue. Make sure that you’re open with your staff about how you address performance problems in general so that they understand you don’t make arbitrary personnel decisions and so that they feel confident that they would be warned if their performance was falling short and would have a chance to improve.

As long as your staff understands how performance problems are handled, a firing shouldn’t lower morale. In fact, sometimes exactly the opposite happens – since, after all, keeping low performers on staff is typically a huge morale drain for high performers. If your staff has spotted the problems, they’ll often be relieved when those problems are resolved. And even when employees are friendly with the staff member being let go, as long as they trust that you operate in a fair and straightforward manner, most people can separate personal affection from professional assessments.

Related posts:

1. Team Leaders Must Communicate Expectations
2. Is Your Staff Mailing It In? How to Raise the Bar:
3. How to Communicate Across Generations

1. The Smelly Coworker

The problem: Your coworker smells so bad that you have to hold your breath whenever he’s nearby.

The solution: First of all, if you’re not this person’s manager, you may want to bring it to the manager to handle. This is an extremely awkward conversation, and you might as well take it to the person who gets paid to do it.

If you are the odoriferous employee’s manager, think about how you’d want it handled if it were you. You’d probably want someone to bring it to your attention kindly and discreetly, so that’s the way to go here. Be honest, direct, and as kind as possible.  Start by mentioning that his work has been good (assuming that it has been) and then say something like, “I want to discuss something that’s awkward, and I hope I don’t offend you. You’ve had a noticeable body odor lately. It might be a need to wash clothes more frequently or shower more, or it could be a medical problem. This is the kind of thing that people often don’t realize about themselves, so I wanted to bring it to your attention.”

Likely, the employee will be embarrassed. But if he’s combative, explain that he needs to come to address the issue because of the impact on the office. You might also suggest a visit to a doctor to find out if there could be a medical reason behind the odor.

2. The Chronic Cougher

The problem: Every day, all day, your coworker in the next cubicle is coughing. It’s loud, it’s distracting, and it never seems to stop.

The solution: You really can’t ask someone to stop coughing – if she could, she would have stopped already. Making her feel worse about the situation won’t help.

As is so often the case, headphones might be your answer here. But if headphones aren’t feasible, you might consider asking your boss if you can move your work space somewhere further away, so that you can better focus on work.

And remember, as frustrating as it is to have to listen to someone cough all day, it’s probably worse to be the one who can’t stop coughing.

3. The Inappropriate Dresser

The problem: Your assistant’s outfits reveal far more of her than you’re comfortable seeing.

The solution: Couch the discussion in terms of dress code and professional image. Say something like, “Jane, you’re an excellent employee and I feel a bit awkward about bringing this up, but some of your blouses are more revealing than you might realize. You’re very professional otherwise and I don’t want this to impact people’s perceptions of you. I’d like to ask that you raise the neckline on your blouses.”

Have this conversation at the end of the day, so that she doesn’t have to spend the rest of the day feeling self-conscious about what she’s wearing.

4. The Perfume Overdoser

The problem: Your coworker loves Chanel #5 and leaves a trail of it wherever she goes. Unfortunately, you’re sensitive to chemicals and find your throat closing up whenever she’s near.

The solution: Make it about you, not about her. Say something like, “Karen, I love your perfume!  But I’m allergic to some perfumes and get some respiratory issues when I’m around strong ones. It really is lovely, but do you think you could wear less of it at work?”

5. The Slacker

The problem: You’re working away and your office mate is playing on Facebook or running a fantasy football league. Every day. It’s obvious to you and your other co-workers that he’s not pulling his weight, but for some reason your boss doesn’t do anything about it.

The solution: Try to ignore it. Sure, it’s possible your boss is letting him get away with it, but it’s also possible your boss is addressing it behind the scenes; you probably wouldn’t know about it if that was the case. Either way, the answer for you is the same: If it’s not affecting your work, it’s really not your business. If it does affect your ability to do your job (because you have to take on his work, or you’re dependent on his work in order to do your own job), then raise it with your boss from that perspective, keeping the focus on how it affects your productivity.

Of course, if you’re the slacker’s manager, then you need to address it head-on.

6. The Meeting Hogger

The problem: She monopolizes every meeting with long, rambling rants about items that seem to interest no one but herself.

The solution: Speak up!  Redirect the conversation by saying, “Turning the topic back to where we started, I think we want to cover A, B, and C before we wrap up.”  Or when she pauses for breath, say, “I’d love to hear what others think about that.”  And if you’re the one running the meetings where this happens, talk to your coworker privately after the next meeting where it happens. Tell her, “I appreciate hearing your input, but I want to make sure that we’re hearing from other people. Next time, I’d love it if you’d help me encourage others to speak up.”

7. When You’re the Problem

The problem: You thought everything was fine, but now your coworker is telling that your behavior in meetings drives her crazy, or that that star job candidate who turned down the company’s offer last week cited you as the problem.

The solution: Don’t get defensive. Even if you think your colleague is completely off-base, try to listen to the feedback with an open mind, and then thank her for sharing it with you. Unless your colleague has a serious personality disorder, delivering this kind of feedback probably wasn’t easy for her, so try to be gracious. Then, after the sting has had a chance to wear off, give real thought to what she said. Is there any truth to it? If not, why are you being perceived that way? Sometimes difficult feedback can be a service if it helps point you in a better direction.

Related posts:

1. Your Top Questions on Managing Your Boss
2. On the Chopping Block? Here Are 4 More Strategies for Saving Your Neck
3. Think You May Get Fired?

My former assistant a few years back couldn’t keep up with the workload and I was close to letting her go when she ended up leaving on her own. But since then, she’s told me that she’s listed me as a reference. Fortunately I haven’t been called yet, but what should I do if I am? I can’t honestly give her a good reference.

Well, first, you’re right not to give in and give her a positive reference just to get out of an awkward situation. If you recommend someone who turns out to be awful, it will reflect on you and your judgment, and could harm your own reputation.

Instead, here are four possible ways to proceed:

1. First, make sure you warn the employee in advance that you won’t be able to provide a positive reference. You may still receive calls from reference-checkers who go outside of the list of references she provides, but this should minimize it.

While you might cringe at the thought of having to relay this message, remember that it’s far kinder to warn her than to let her offer up your name, only to have you provide a lukewarm (or worse) assessment. In explaining your decision to her, say something like, “I wish you all the best, but I can’t in good faith give you the type of reference that would be useful for you.”

2. There’s an easy out if she worked for you more than a couple of years ago: You can explain to the reference-checker (or the employee herself) that you don’t feel equipped to be a reference since her work for you was so long ago and you can’t remember the types of nuances that reference-checkers are looking for. This is essentially a “no comment” without the judgment.

3. If option #2 would strain credulity, you can fall back on saying you can only confirm title and dates of employment. However, be prepared for a savvy reference-checker to ask if this is your policy across the board or just for this candidate.

4. Last, consider honesty. After all, reference checking (and the whole hiring process, for that matter) is all about finding out if the candidate and the job are a good match. If they’re not a good match and it’s not uncovered until it’s too late, the company will be stuck with a poor performer and the employee will be stuck struggling in a job and maybe even losing it down the road.

However, if you do choose to provide a reference for a poor performer, stick to objective facts you can prove. (Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, employers are permitted to provide critical references as long as they’re truthful.)

Related posts:

1. How to Choose Between Equally Great Candidates
2. 5 Critical Steps Before Hiring Someone
3. The Rewards of Assuming Positive Intent

But telecommuting workers aren’t always a bed of roses for the manager who has to bring them together as a team, often dealing with their spats over who was told what, and when. They argue about who isn’t doing the job, who is obviously watching “Jersey Shore” instead of completing a project and who keeps missing deadlines.

If you think you may never be confronted with such a dilemma, think again. Gartner Inc., an information technology research and advisory company, says the number of worldwide remote workers will pass 46 million this year. Further, a recent World at Work survey found that the most common teleworkers are male, college graduates, age 40 and are knowledge workers.

So, the chances are pretty good you’re going to be called upon to manage a virtual team with critical missions. Unfortunately, the chances also are good that you’re going to face some tough challenges.

Among them will be the chronic problem of poor communication between team members. Because despite email, Skype, instant messaging and even Facebook, communicating effectively and accurately with teams who may be thousands of miles apart can pose problems.

Then, before you know it, one team member is upset because she says she wasn’t told a key piece of information, while another whines about the work ethic of someone else. A third jumps in with a complaint about what he believes to be a snippy e-mail from a colleague.

While these are all issues that might be easily and quickly resolved – or never even occur at all – if team members work face-to-face on a daily basis, they are issues that can easily get blown out of proportion  with virtual teams. You may not even be aware, for example, that some team members are stewing in their own juices about some real or imagined slight. You have no clue that co-workers thousands of miles apart believe one another to be guilty of some dastardly deeds.

But you find out when the team implodes, missing deadlines, snarling innovative ideas and spending more time hurling blame than working.

The critical issue for you as a manager is that this team is now unable to work effectively and productively – and that would hurt the bottom line. And your career.

In his book, “A Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams,” Yael Zofi suggests that one way to resolve conflict among remote team members is with a conference phone call. He suggests a manager using this method should:

• Set ground rules before the call, and make it clear you’ll serve as mediator. Tell team members you’re not going to take sides, but are there to help clear up misunderstandings.
• Let each person state his or her ideas. Don’t agree or disagree, but make sure the information is clearly stated.
• Compare the ideas of the team members. Address the main areas of conflict, such as problems with communication. Outline how people need to take responsibility for their actions.
• State the actions that need to take place and get buy-in from team members. Don’t focus on individual personalities, but rather the steps that will be taken. “Remind teammates that they don’t have to be best friends, but they do need to work together,” Zofi writes.
• Tie the end of the conversation back to the original goal of the call and what the team wants to achieve. “Although their approaches or styles might differ, people actually want similar things,” he writes. “They may argue on the call because they are ambitious or competitive…but most of the time people want to be part of something, they want to solve the problem, and they want to be successful.”

Related posts:

1. Don’t Just Fix a Symptom When Resolving Conflict
2. Unresolved Conflict Could Kill Your Team
3. Climbing the Corporate Ladder As a Virtual Employee

I’m hiring for a 3-month position. This is not a long employment commitment, but at the same time it is for a crunch period so the job needs to be done efficiently and effectively.

I’ve narrowed it down to 3 top candidates. Under my current assessment, any of the three would do fine; none is a clear choice above the others. What’s your advice on finding the criteria to make this kind of choice? I could pick one randomly, but I do want there to be reason behind choosing one over the others.

Well, that’s a nice position to be in! Here are three methods to zero in on the best candidate, all other things being equal:

1. Give them each an exercise that will simulate the work they’d be doing on the job. For instance, if you need someone who can write persuasively under pressure, give each candidate a set of talking points and 30 minutes to draft an op-ed. Or if the job involves accounting, send them some sample financial statements and ask them to explain them back to you in plain language. You get the idea – there’s always a way to do a simulation of the job itself. And the results of these exercises can be very telling, often strongly differentiating one candidate from another.

2. Check each candidate’s references and listen to see if one has references who
positively rave about her. What you’re looking for here isn’t just a general “yes, she did a good job,” but rather positively glowing reviews. You’re looking for the difference between “I definitely recommend you consider her for the position” and “OMG – she’s the best – I wish we could hire her, but since we can’t, you must.” If a reference raves about one of your candidates and sounds like they’d move heaven and earth to hire her back again, that might be the person you want.

3. Last, really scrutinize what each candidate has accomplished in past jobs. Has one of them gone beyond doing her job perfectly well to really achieving significantly? If one has a track of achievement – taking something from A to B, where B is greater than A – that’s the person you want.

If you do all three of these (or even two of them), you should end up very confident about who to extend that job offer to.

Related posts:

1. How to Do a Great Phone Interview
2. 15 Do’s and Don’ts for Better Interviewing
3. 5 Critical Steps Before Hiring Someone

Factors that are conducive to creating effective teams that have a better chance of success in reaching their goals include:

Strong team leadership. Teams need a strong leader. This doesn’t mean someone who will take charge and make all the decisions. On the contrary, a good team leader will bring out the best in the team members. They will know the individual strengths and weaknesses of the team and utilize that information to ensure the team composition has the right combination of skills to be successful. In fact, a good team leader will find a way to ensure that team members have opportunities for development so those weaknesses can eventually become strengths. A strong leader empowers the team members to work through issues and make decisions, but knows when to step in to keep the team moving forward.

Common goals and objectives. It is common that when individuals first come together to form a team, each individual members has his/her own goals and objectives. The role of the team leader is to ensure that the team focuses around common goals and objectives. He/she does this by getting the team to agree on the goals for the project and develop a strategy for reaching those goals. Agreeing on a common goal does not mean individual goals need to be pushed aside. A strong leader can help marry individual goals to the common goal to benefit the individual team members and the team as a whole. Following a common goal helps provide direction to the team and sets the stage for moving forward.

Processes for getting things done. A team must have a way of working together. There must be processes that the team members follow to make decisions, assign tasks, manage conflicts that arise, and achieve their goals.

Diversity among members. Diversity includes not just race, gender or cultural differences; but also diversity in experiences and skills. Diversity among team members is essential to ensure that members have the skills and experience necessary to manage the tasks they are assigned and meet their goals. A diverse team in the sense of race, gender and cultural differences, especially for global projects, enables a broader perspective on the project.

Time to learn about each other. Take the time, before the project kicks into gear, to enable the project team members to spend some time together and get to know each other. This helps to build trust which is needed if a team is going to be effective. The more the team members know about each other, the more comfortable they become working together, challenging ideas, offering suggestions and in helping each other out to ensure goals are accomplished.

Your thoughts? What are factors do you find are essential for effective team work? Share with others in the Comments field below. Thanks!

Related posts:

1. Effective Teams Part 2: Examples of Team Norms
2. 7 Traits of Stellar Project Managers
3. 3 Universal Traits of Successful Change Agents

Many of us consider email to be the most efficient way to communicate for work. How’s that been working for you lately?

The trouble is, the fundamentals of email technology haven’t changed significantly since its invention, but many of us use it  as the de facto place to inform and have important discussions. For a lot of folks, myself included, staring at a huge inbox and wading through email to find that really important thing you need to do can be a nightmare. It becomes even harder when you live a mobile lifestyle between multiple devices, and are trying to keep what’s important at top of mind.

This was a huge problem for me. Just ask my team members. So I started looking around for solutions and attempted a few GTD techniques around Inbox Zero that worked for quite a few folks. The problem I found was that changing my behavior drastically and becoming super organized wasn’t easy, especially if it meant I needed to spend lots of time sorting my Inbox. I’d rather spend my time creating things and having fun – not wading through a sea of information that I know darn well isn’t going to go away. So I stepped back and defined a process for managing email that would be “good enough.”

I defined “good enough” as the following:

• I need a way not to re-read emails unless they are important.
• I need a relatively easy way to find useful information from past emails in the future
• I need a good snapshot of what’s new and be keenly aware that something new is there
• I need a good snapshot of things I’ve yet to accomplish and I want to do something about
• I need to have visibility of the snapshots across my Laptop, Tablet, and Phone

After identifying my goals, it was easier to create a formula that seems to work. I know it won’t work for everyone, but the more I talk about how it cured my Inbox nightmares at the QuickBase offices, the more I’m convinced this process might help others too. What’s great about the method is that it gives leeway for some chaos, and at times demands chaos to be successful. I call it my Near Zero Inbox Recipe, and I thought I would share what I’ve learned and see if others have some great ideas to make the process even more successful.

Near Zero Inbox – Recipe for Success:

Ingredients:

• A handful of Email Flags
• One Archive Folder
• A healthy sprinkling of Search to taste

Step 1: Flag what’s important

As Six Flags says, “More Flags, More Fun.” Every modern email client has a way to flag emails that I absolutely need to address. I only use the flag itself (and never unset it) – ignoring the Project, Task and Due Date fields on any task.The important thing to making Inbox flags a success is to take the time to think through if the email is a priority or not. If there’s someone on my team driving a task or project, I don’t need to spend the energy to keep dibs on it in my Inbox.

Its also good to try and stem the flow of email before it hits your inbox. Emails great for sharing notes, inviting folks to meetings, and things like that.  But it’s not great for collaboration. If my list of flagged emails is too large (my comfort level is 20 flagged messages at any one time) the project should be tracked outside of my Inbox in QuickBase or some other business app solution to keep yourself and your team organized, updated and on schedule. Actually managing your projects in your project management software! There’s a thought. If my projects didn’t live in QuickBase I’d have a deluge of 100-email-long threads and could miss important details. Not fun.

Oh, and one more thing. There’s never a better solution then a good old fashion face to face or phone call to work through an issue.

Step 2: Archive the Stuff You Don’t Flag

I never delete any email (unless it’s obviously spam).  It sounds crazy, I know. Google is taking this same approach with their Gmail service.  I’ve found it really useful to have a pile of data around that I can refer to easily in the future.  How many times have you thought to yourself “If only I had that note Karen sent me last year about the Zoo it would be so useful!”   Folks around here know I keep all my email, and often ask me to help them fill in the blanks with my archive. Gladly.

If you didn’t flag it, it’s not something you need to be worried about this moment…so take it off your plate. I have a single folder called “Archive” where I store all my read and un-flagged email. The trick here is to get stuff moved there quickly so that you have good line of sight on what’s important.

BTW: I use this same trick for documents on my desktop – Near Zero Icon Policy. Unless I’m working on it, it doesn’t belong on my desktop so there’s a single folder on my desktop called “Stuff” that I use to store those files.

Step 3: Move Important Sent Email to the Inbox and Flag it

One of the more flustering things about email is remembering where a conversation stands. Did I ever get a reply I needed? Do I even remember I needed a reply? To help solve for this I simply flag the message I sent and move it into my Inbox where all the other important flags are. I’ve learned that I only need one message from any thread in my Inbox to remind me of what’s important about it so I also take other emails on the same topic and move them into my Archive folder.

Step 4: Trust in the Power of Search

The big simplifier that pulls this methodology together is that I can control all of the chaos with Search. What’s interesting about search is that we use it daily to find information on the Internet but we don’t often think about using the power of search to simplify our Inboxes. The good news is that recent versions of Windows & Mac OS X have wonderful search engines built right in – and it’s indexing your email already! If you prefer the simplicity of Google’s interface – Google offers Google Desktop which can also do the same thing to help you wrangle your email.

Works on the Go Too!

What’s great about having a relatively small Inbox full of only things marked as flagged or unread is that you now have a great mobile snapshot of what’s important and also a convenient way to quickly gage what’s come in that’s new.

It’s not always easy to file things on a mobile device. On my iPhone, when I read a message it marks it as “read,” so if I think it’s important I mark it as “unread” (because iPhones don’t have flags). Later, when I come back to my desktop, I scan my Inbox – automatically flag unread messages that I marked as unread while I was away and move all the rest of the read messages that aren’t already flagged out of the way into my Archive folder.

Saying Goodbye to the Email Shuffle

My old methodology for email control was fanatical categorization. This took a ton of time upfront for each message deciding where to put it, and in the end my category choice required me to spend time sorting through a pile of email anyways when I wanted to remind myself of content from the past. My new methodology has me spending zero time categorizing up front, and trusts the search system to do it for me. What’s great about this is if I can remember a few things anywhere about the email thread, I can quickly find what I’m looking for much like I do when trying to find something on the Internet. It works great! And sure I might spend a few extra moments when I do need to go back in time trying to find what I’m looking for, but the process is very similar to how I already look for info online and the amount of non-productive time I used to spend categorizing emails I’m now spending having fun working on projects or spending time with my friends and family.

I’m sure there are questions about what I do in certain cases, or ideas you all have about how you handle the same issues in your digital life. Care to share your tips and tricks? If you do give Near Zero Inbox a try, please do check back in and let me know how it goes!

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