The Benefit of the 4D's

by Diane Holz

Hi, I am the Finance Director and it’s my time to be the blogger. You might wonder what the Finance Director can know about productivity. I wondered the same thing but here I am. I would like to tell you one instance (among many) where I have said to myself…wow, this is really good stuff the trainers teach.

The other day I overheard one of the trainers doing a segment of their training session. The marketing person has been listening to video clips of the trainers, selecting which ones to use on our web-site. Since I share the cubicle next to hers, I got to hear one of the trainers say something that really made sense to me and stood out.

The trainer was surmising that some people open their email, read one message and go on to the next message, thinking they will come back to that message and do something with it later. How many of you have done the same thing? At some point you go back and re-read the message, and maybe do something with it – or leave it yet again for another time to deal with it. Think how many emails you get and initially read, go back yet another time and read the email, go back yet another time and read the email, go back yet another time and read the email…and on and on.

I know that I am guilty of reading emails and going on and reading my other emails. Then I go back through and prioritize what I need to do with the emails…leaving some for tomorrow…or another day when I have more time to deal with it. The trainer’s point was, have you then read one email, or have you now read one email ten times?

If you do that with ten emails a day, you are actually then reading 50 more emails a week. I thought…wow, I don’t have the time to read fifty more emails a week I know that for some emails I don’t just read them two times, I know that sometimes I read them three or four times. What makes me do this with my emails –I usually listen to my voice mail, write down the message and what to do and then delete it. Why don’t I do the same for email?

What I know is, it’s time to revisit the 4Ds. After I read this e-mail.