…with an email written to her clients about our ‘personal digital coaching’ session on ‘personal news aggregation‘ a couple of weeks ago. I asked her if I could share it with you…
“Two weeks ago, I spent two hours with my new friend Todd that changed my life. That sounds dramatic, I know, but it is so so so the truth.
I love e-mail. I love hearing from people and writing to people. I love that I can consider a response before replying. (The telephone? Forget it.) I love that I can file important messages. And when sweet people say nice things, I even have a special label I can add for “Kind Words”. I love e-mail.
But e-mail was also breaking my heart. Every day. I had no idea how to manage it anymore. It felt like my only recourse was to stop replying or to hire someone to reply for me. And I didn’t like either of those options. (Jess handles the general mailbox for us but I still want to reply to the “to Carrie” messages.) My solution? Spending hours and hours hunched at my desk, reading and answering messages. Those hours were after the hours spent doing my actual job.
But then my friend Ron and I had a coffee date. We didn’t even talk about this e-mail predicament of mine (because aren’t most of us in this boat?); he only mentioned that he should introduce me to Todd at e1evation because we’re in similar lines of work. Not long after that introduction, Todd and I skyped, I found out what sorts of services he offered, perked my ears at e-mail productivity and booked myself for an online coaching session.
Todd uses GoToMeeting so we could share desktops. I could watch him and he could actually take over my computer. I had more than 5,000 unread messages (none of which were from clients or my mom or were anything critical, by the way, – but still…) and just looking at my inbox in such a state made my stomach hurt. It felt like hundreds of people all calling for my attention at once. It felt like working as a coffee barista, tending to an endless line of the latte-thirsty.
And then Todd changed everything. In our one coaching session, he taught me a new process for organizing notes and tasks that’s so intuitive and so easy. (Even when I already had my own system that I was quite attached to.) A few hours after our session, I got myself to “in-box zero.” I love it. And I’ve gotten hours back in my week. Seriously. Hours. And I don’t panic to open my e-mail account. It’s easy to prioritize what to read next. And it just feels orderly, clean. Peaceful.
I have a peaceful inbox.
You have no idea how much this seemingly small thing means to me. So I want everyone to know about my new friend Todd. (Until Ron, I didn’t even know you could hire someone like Todd.) He does much more than this e-mail productivity piece but since this is where I’ve started with him and what I’ve experienced, it’s what I’m telling you about.
I asked him if he would be willing to offer a discount and he agreed to a special package for the Pink Elephant community. You get the same package I did – the 2-hour coaching session – for $149 (regularly priced $189 – what I paid – and don’t tell Todd this, but I would have paid triple; it’s been SO valuable).
If you’re experiencing the kind of e-mail overwhelm I was, I can’t recommend Todd more highly. If you’d like this special Pink Elephant package, he’s offering it until the end of October, so you’ll want to book quick. You can connect with him using the form on his site: http://e1evation.com/contact/.
If you go for it, let me know how it goes!
Carrie
p.s. If you’re curious, I’m not an affiliate for Todd. Just genuinely smitten.”
In 90 minutes, we applied the principles in my ebook on ‘personal news aggregation’ and a couple of hours later, Carrie sent me a picture of her shiny, uber-clean inbox. I can do the same for you if you’d like…
Writer Carrie Klassen is a green tea enthusiast, amateur poet, fine point pen aficionado, INFJ Scorpio, and president of Pink Elephant Creative, a writing and design boutique for inspired entrepreneurs. She also writes workbooks and teaches workshops at Pink Elephant Academy for Entrepreneurs.
I have to agree with her!