The problem gets worse with greater complexity, as each email could potentially be filed in numerous different folders, such as when it relates to more than one project or perhaps several administration matters. This is Hick’s law playing out, with the effect that it takes a lot more time to manage your inbox. What does this have to do with email folders you may ask? Well, as the structure of your email folders becomes more complicated, it takes longer each time to decide where to file any particular email. I recall thinking that it was all a little too hard, in the end choosing the meal that my friend had decided to have … before he changed his mind again! The waitress came to take our order a number of times, with us asking her to give us a few more minutes on each occasion before we were finally ready. Most of us changed our minds at least three times. We all began flicking through this tome trying to decide what to have. There must have been about 20 pages of food options. When the waitress brought us the menu, it was more like a book. My wife and I went out for a meal to an Italian pizza and pasta restaurant with another couple. Recently, I saw this very thing play out in a restaurant. Hick’s law basically says that the more choices you have, the longer you will take to make a decision. Hick’s law – sometimes also known as the Hick-Hyman law – was named after the British and American psychologists William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman. The truth is that a complex filing system like this can be as unproductive as no system at all. Quite often a system becomes so complex that its owner ends up creating duplicate folders by mistake. I often see ‘systems’ involving numerous folders under the inbox in which there are then subfolders and sometimes even sub-subfolders. Something I’ve noticed in working with people to improve their productivity is that quite often their Outlook email folders are far too complicated. (If this isn’t you, and instead you have thousands – even tens of thousands – of emails clogging up your inbox, then perhaps you should start with my previous post about creating a clean and stress-free inbox.) That is, we take some time – at least occasionally – to file emails that have been read and dealt with into an email folder somewhere under our inbox. Productivity Training for Executive Assistants & DirectorsĪlmost every one of us uses Outlook email folders.
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