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Curt Fowler: Stand Out by Answering Messages

Curt Fowler

Tuesday, August 25th, 2020

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz

This is our third article discussing the habits required to stand out in any field as outlined in Jordan Raynor’s book, “Stand Out.” The three habits are to show up on time, respond to your messages and complete your tasks on time.

Despite countless efforts to minimize or abolish email in business, it is still the standard form of business communication today. When someone sends you an email (and you know them), it is a reasonable expectation for the sender to hear back from you within 24 hours.

You hating email is not an excuse not to respond. Raynor compares not responding to emails to sitting down for coffee with a friend, asking them questions, and only getting a blank stare in response. Rude, right?

Most people are not trying to be rude. They “accidentally” do not respond to emails because their inbox and work life is out of control. Raynor states this level of out-of-controlness makes it impossible for you to stand out at work.

I agree and I cannot stand the low-level fear of not knowing if I’ve missed a message or if I might drop a ball some other way. We all want to do great work, but our work habits often sabotage our efforts. Which is why I’m writing this series of articles. I want better work habits.

I always have more work I “need” to get done than time to do it. I want to work with the level of peace described by David Allen in his book, “Getting Things Done.” A peace that can only be found when every to-do is tracked and reviewed regularly. Thankfully, we’ll give Raynor’s implementation of Allen’s work in future articles.

Raynor suggests a three-step process to gain control of your inbox and honor the people in your life with timely responses. The steps are:

1. Disable All Non-urgent Notifications: This is a game-changer. Most people don’t do this because they fear they will be un-responsive if they do. But not following this step leads to the overwhelm that causes us not to respond!

Work takes time. Deep work takes longer blocks of time. Being constantly interrupted keeps you from getting the work done that matters most. I like setting a timer before I dive into a project and trying to see how long I can make it without being interrupted or interrupting myself by checking email or my phone. Phone calls come in but I will let those go to voicemail if I know the call is not urgent.

The first step is to turn off all non-urgent notifications. These are your email and text notifications. Make emails and texts something you check when you are taking a break from your work. You’ll be taking breaks every 60-90 minutes and can respond then.

Odds are no one will notice the delay in your response. It is really fun when a question in a group email gets answered before you even knew the question existed!

2. Set Specific Times to Respond: Raynor responds to his messages at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. every workday and rarely checks email on weekends. I probably check my inboxes too frequently. I tend to clean them out in breaks from my deep work. I need to do a better job of scheduling time at the end of each day to catch up on all emails before I leave for home.

Try some different schedules that you believe will work in your office and with your clients. The key is to get started.

Tell people who may need to reach you in an emergency how to get your attention. At our office, we page people when they are needed. My wife calls me two times on my cell as our signal that her call is urgent and she wasn’t calling me to pass time on her way somewhere.

3. Process Every Message: Raynor suggests you process every message until you get to inbox zero. We are not supposed to use our inboxes as our to-do lists. Instead, we process every message. If we can’t complete the task, we add it to our to-do list with a due date.

Only when we get to inbox zero can we safely know we have responded to every message on time. Raynor says his inbox has been at zero at the end of almost every workday for at least three years.

Imagine how good it would feel to know that every task was covered and you were meeting all of your responsibilities every time you left work. How much more present could you be for the people who you love most? How much more peace would you have?

This is not just about standing out, it is also about creating a life you are thrilled to live. I’m excited to learn more when I write next week’s article so I can continue to improve my systems.

We love helping leaders build great businesses. If you’d like to learn more you can check out our free resources at www.valuesdrivenresults.com/resource-library/ or give us a call at (229) 244-1559. We’d love to help you in any way we can.

Curt Fowler is president of Fowler & Company and director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey. He is dedicated to helping leaders build great organizations and better lives for themselves and the people they lead.

Curt is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker and business advisor. He has an MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School, is a CPA, and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and four children.