CUT THE AMOUNT OF EMAIL RECEIVED BY 85% IN LESS THAN A WEEK

Lousy communications is one of the biggest challenges any team faces. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost files, even whole conversation threads, in emails. And no one likes triaging an inbox, even with a good system. So what if we had a better solution?

We do, thanks to a team of online video game developers. After pulling the plug on an unsuccessful multiplayer game, the developers at Tiny Speck Inc. - now called Slack - turned their attention to fixing the communications problems that undermined their own efforts. And I’m glad they did.

We all know that email is out-of-control. I have a public email address and a private one, and even the private account used to get unwieldy. When I dug deeper into the problem recently, I discovered 87% of my messages were related to team communications. I don’t know about you, but I love emails for what they do well - it’s just that team communication isn’t one of those things.

We’ve all felt the frustration of trying to keep up with complicated, disorganized email conversations, or the panic of lost files. We’ve all tried unsuccessfully using our inbox as a staging ground, workspace, to-do list, and so on. Worse, as email gets crazier on us, we try other solutions to cope - instant messaging, chatrooms, project management apps - which have benefits of their own but which also fragment our discussions and workflow even further. Pretty soon it’s all like some overgrown tangle of weeds.

What to do? Pat Flynn, a digital marketing entrepreneur has the answer. He suggests we try Slack, a communications and workflow app he’s been using for a few months now. The concept is simple. It folds together all the functionality of email, instant messaging, file sharing, and more into one system that’s actually fun to use. Instead of team communication about your projects and initiatives mixed up with random messages from friends, unrelated requests from clients, and funny cat memes from your aunt, you can keep it all separate. Even better, it’s highly searchable and fully integrated with your mobile devices.

You can set up conversations (“channels”) around certain projects or interests and keep all relevant parties on the team updated, swap and store files, even message team members individually as needed.

Think of it this way: Email is like a phone call to someone in another building. Slack is like a conversation with someone in the same room. The first is great for folks outside your team, but the other is ideal for the collaborative communication teams need to succeed - especially if everyone is working remotely.

My Experience So Far

I got my team on board immediately after checking it out. I sent an email saying I wouldn’t respond to emails or texts. If they wanted to reach me, I’d be on Slack. I also sent instructions for joining. Some members were resistant, but it wasn’t along before we were all using it. One told me afterward that if you know how to send a Tweet or a text message, you can be up and running in a few minutes. The result is that my incoming email is now less than 20% what it was, and the communication with my team has improved dramatically.

Right now we have five team members involved in sixteen different channels. The setup was nearly instant and the structure came organically. We have channels for initiatives like webinars and my writing projects, for calendar and event coordination, and even for sharing cute pictures of our kids. We’ve only been using Slack a little while, but the result is a virtual environment that feels like a large, open office with conversations churning on all the stuff that matters most. So far, it’s even been fun.

Five Tips to Get Started

If you want to quickly improve team communication and workflow, Slack is the ticket. Whether your team is already working in an office, or everyone’s virtual, here are five tips to get you started fast and effectively.

1- Keep it direct. Have your team use their first name as their username, unless you have multiple folks with the same first name. The idea is to have a one-name identifier. They can add their full names to their profiles, along with their photos.

2- Keep it tight. Only invite people you interact with on a frequent basis - usually this means your staff, direct reports, or key clients. Email or texting is fine for people outside this circle, but to maximize functionality and efficiency, keep the Slack team tight.

3- Keep it focused. Only set up necessary channels. Use the default “General” until you start seeing a line of messages that should be segregated. Channels can be areas of focus, like administration, calendar, etc., or specific projects, events, conferences.

4- Keep it central. Start pulling all the relevant conversations, files, action plans, and decisions into Slack. It’s all searchable so if you start using it almost exclusively, you’ll have access to most of the key elements of your business within a few clicks and taps.

5- Keep it everywhere. Download Slack to all your devices from the App Store or Google Play. You can use Slack via the browser interface if you want, but I prefer the Mac desktop app. (If you use Windows, you’ll have to use a browser. There is not a dedicated Windows app.) I also use the iOS app on my iPhone and iPad. Everything stays instantly synced between all my devices.

My team and I have nowhere near tapped what’s possible with Slack. It can, for instance, integrate with all sorts of commonly used services like Twitter, Dropbox, and Stripe. You can even use it with services like IFTTT or Zapier to forward emails to it or ingest RSS feeds. We’re just getting started with this.

Like I said at the beginning, email still has its uses - and for some of them email is the best solution. But based on my experience so far, the best way to simultaneously manage your inbox and improve team communication is to save email for outside communication and use Slack for everything in house.

What’s the most frustrating communications or workflow problem you and your team face?

HOW TO BLOG IF YOU DON’T HAVE TIME?

If you want your message to reach the maximum number of people, a blog is hands down the best means I know. But who’s got time?

It doesn’t matter if I’m speaking with someone just starting to blog or someone who’s been building their platform for a few years, the first struggle people face is finding enough time in the day to do it. Maybe you can identify. I definitely can. In fact there have been times I’ve wondered if I even have what it takes to keep up the pace with any sort of consistency, but I’ve found seven strategies that help me make and maximize my time for blogging.

1- I Own My Schedule

This is foundational. Nobody has more time than anyone else. We just have different commitments and demands on the time we have. The important thing to remember is that we have agency when it comes those commitments and demands. We don’t find time so much as we make it. It’s not accidental. It takes intentionality, determination, and the willingness to make tradeoffs. That means I have to take responsibility for my time. If I don’t prioritize my life, as Greg McKeown says in Essentialism, “someone else will.”

2- I Set My Schedule

Armed with this determination, I act on the responsibility by setting my schedule. I cordon off time in my week to work on my blog. Whatever the activity, the principle is the same: what gets scheduled gets done. I’ve tried different things, but right now I’m working in concentrated periods on more posts. I’ve done it differently in the past, and will probably switch things up again. The point is that I carve out dedicated time to work. If I relied on fitting things into a few unclaimed hours each week, you’d only have something to read about once a month from me.

3- I Use a Timer

One of the world’s greatest productivity tools is a deadline - and that goes for micro deadlines like setting a timer for writing. If I have ninety minutes in which to finish a post, I set myself an alarm and work as intently as possible toward that goal. Part of owning our schedules is making them work for us, and setting a timer forces me to stay focused, get to the point, and keep the schedule I’ve set for myself.

4- I Write

I know, it sounds obvious, but do you know how much time I don’t actually write in the time I have set aside for writing if I’m not careful? The humorist, P.J. O’Rourke, has a funny passage about this. And plenty of other professionals say the same.

“Let me tell you about writers,” says John Podhoretz. “Writers sit. Then, after a while, they stand. They pace. They sit again. Sometimes, they talk on their telephone. Or they surf the Internet. At some point, they generate words.”

Here’s the truth: it’s hard to stay focused and write. While coaching another writer, Flannery O’Connor said she thought the person spent too much time reading during their writing time. And of course research, social media, even fiddling around with formatting can slow us down. Now when I write, I write, at least when I’m being good. I try to have all my research ready to go when I start, and I learned to stay drilled in on the work.

5- I Stay Close to My Subject

I read somewhere that writing is like wrangling a horse. No matter how well you did yesterday, you have to saddle it again today if you want to ride. The trick is not letting the horse get too far from you. I try to stay as close as I can to my audience and the topics I cover. I’m thinking, talking, reading about them all the time. The benefit is that when I sit down to write my head is already in the right space. The horse is already saddled and ready to go.

6- I Keep a Notebook

Part of staying close to my subject is keeping my subject close to me. I have a notebook where I keep research, quotes, post ideas, anything that will keep me present to the work. I never have to work from scratch because I can always pick up an idea and get started.

7- I Use a Template

I’ve identified the key elements needed in most of my posts. That list has become a template that offers me a simple, straightforward guideline as I get started. I’ve written about my blog template before, and you can read more about it here. But the big idea is that there’s no point wasting time reinventing the wheel if you don’t need to. I don’t, and the template has saved me countless hours over the years now.

We all know that blogging consistently is crucial for building our platforms. The questions to ask yourself are: how much influence do you want to have and how far to do you want your message to go? If you get connected to what’s a stake, it makes the decision to blog consistently a no-brainer, and it doesn’t have to be torture. Like anything, it just takes commitment and a little help from a good system.

What are the biggest obstacles you face to blogging consistently? Tell me!