The Happiness Project: Five Realistic Tips for Using Email More Efficiently.

The Happiness Project

THE HAPPINESS PROJECT is the memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier – happily, it was a #1 New York Times bestseller. As one of the hundreds of experiments I've conducted, I started this blog. Here, I recount my daily adventures in pursuit of happiness. –

Gretchen Rubin

What Started Me Thinking

"The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
“Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
“Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope

Happiness Theories I Reject

Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
Sartre: "Hell is other people."
Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Five tips for using email more efficiently.

Email. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. I’m trying to be smarter about how to use email so that it makes my life easier, not tougher.

I’ve read a lot of advice about email that, although it sounds helpful, just isn’t realistic. For example, I’ve read that you should deal with each email as it comes in. I just can’t do that.

I also commit the classic mistake of having a “miscellaneous” folder, which you should never do – though in my case, the miscellaneous folder happens to be labeled “Worth saving.” It’s full of emails that having nothing in common except that they are, well, worth saving.

But I do try to follow these strategies:

1. Keep it brief. On the Happiness Project Toolbox, I saw that one person resolved to “Write shorter emails.” This is a resolution we should all embrace! Easier for the writer, easier for the reader.

2. Stay focused. I used to write round-up emails, where I’d include several matters in a single email. I thought this was efficient, because I was sending fewer emails. From my own response to receiving those kinds of emails, however, I’ve changed my habits. Now I write multiple emails, each on a single subject, with an appropriate subject line. I realized that those round-up emails made it hard for me to keep track of different sub-issues, and I also tended to delete the email before everything was addressed. I’m sure I bug people when I send five emails in a row, each on a different subject, but I think it works better.

3. Keep a sense of proportion! Don’t flag an email as “urgent” unless it really is urgent! I know someone who has flagged every single email to me as urgent! Not acceptable!

4. Unsubscribe. As a newsletter writer, I’m always sorry to see someone unsubscribe from my monthly newsletter, but from a happiness-project perspective, it’s a smart thing to do if you’re not reading something. Sure, it may take only a second to delete it when it arrives, but seeing emails flooding into your in-box is so unpleasant; take a few extra seconds to stop those emails at the source. (On the other hand, if you’d like to get my excellent free monthly newsletter, sign up here! Or email me at gretchenrubin1@gmail.com.)

5. Manage your notifications. When you set up a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a Goodreads profile, a YouTube channel, and the like, pay very careful attention to the notifications. Do you really want to be notified when X, Y, or Z happens? Maybe not. And if you realize later you’re getting notifications you don’t want, take a minute to change your settings. As in #4, while it’s true that deleting takes less time than changing your settings, in the long run, it’s worth it to take steps to control this clutter.

What other strategies help you to use email more efficiently? I need more ideas!

* I came across a fun site, Fancy Buffalo -- "a collection of life & style inspiration from the Great Plains."

* It’s Word-of-Mouth Day, when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
-- Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
-- Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @gretchenrubin)
-- Sign up for my free monthly newsletter (about 42,000 people get it)
-- Buy the book
-- Join the 2010 Happiness Challenge to make 2010 a happier year
-- Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
-- Watch the one-minute book video Or the 30-second TV commercial (yes, the book was actually advertised on TV!)
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.