The Exception And The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Previous parts of this article: Part 1
So, good problems are considered challenges and bad problems are just considered looming, scary problems.
Problems (not challenges) come about only due to a lack of foresight or planning, and they come in the form of emergencies.
Most people and companies operate on 80% emergencies and 20% planning at best. Therefore, even the best mostly deal with problems and emergencies.
You should know that it is possible (and much easier) to operate on 80% PLANNING and 20% emergencies, and we will cover this subject in further detail in the “TO PLAN OR NOT TO BE” tip. However, emergencies are a fact of life, you do have to deal with them and yes, they do show up in your inbox as red exclamation points.
We also need to cover the “false alarms” situation... People who mark non urgent e-mails as urgent create a kind of false alarm, and if it happens often enough, urgent items start getting ignored. This is no good – it’s like the boy who cried wolf, but for the business world.
So, in light of the “First In, First Out” rule, the question becomes – how do you handle the emergencies that come to your inbox?? Do you deal with the oldest items first and then come up to the emergencies? Nope! Here is the exception.
:The rules are:
Handle urgent items first and within a maximum time of four hours.
Ensure urgent items become rare.
Minimize the frequency of false alarms.
Following the next simple do’s and don’ts will make sure you properly deal with urgent e-mails or other items.
WHAT NOT TO DO - Click below...