Sending Emails as Tasks
Q: “I have an email that I want to send as a task to somebody else. How can I do this?”
A: Before I explain how to do it, let me caution you as a productivity coach. Just making a task show up in someone’s task list isn’t always the best idea. It’s usually best to forward the email and ask them to accept the assignment.
If you’re not getting good results that way, then their email handling and/or workflow management may need help, and I’d recommend TRO training for them. TRO is a highly simplified yet more powerful approach to GTD principles, and it’s as little as $59. See Tim Kwiatkowski’s great review of TRO for an overview.
So what exactly are the problems with auto-assigning tasks to people, and how do you tell when it might work for you?
The Principles (and When Isn’t it Appropriate?)
1) Delegation requires asking. Good delegation means you ask them if they’ll do it and they agree. You get buy-in that way. If you just forward something and it shows up in their task list, buy-in is bypassed and performance suffers. Exception: This may work when the essence of their job is to do whatever you assign to them, like a dedicated admin, AND this delegation approach is discussed and agreed to in advance (”blanket” buy-in).
2) Accountability means personal interaction. When you personally ask someone to do something, even via email, their sense of accountability is much higher. Just sending tasks into a pool bypasses this important motivator. Exception: When the task pool is carefully managed and metrics are used to gauge overall, individual work performance with personal accountability.
3) Communication is the basic element of leadership. If you just forward an email as a task, they have to pick up the phone or craft a new email to get clarification. It’s harder, so they’re less likely to ask and quality will suffer. Plus, a fresh email lacks the prior discussion thread (unlike a “Reply”), so you may not even know what they’re asking about when they do email you! If you want effective communication—and as a leader that’s your first job—then you’ve gotta make it easy. Sending an email facilitates communication. Exception: If you both use Trog Bar software, a little advance setup lets you pass on the email as a task, yet they can still hit Reply as a normal email for clarification. See details below.
4) Effective work requires good “processing”. To work effectively, all incoming tasks really need to be “processed” by the recipient so they are poised and ready for action at the right time, grouped with similar tasks in similar work contexts. When tasks just show up in lists it creates havoc in their workload. Exception: Forwarding to a task Inbox is not a problem if the recipient is living a good workflow system like Total, Relaxed Organization or David Allen’s GTD.
5) Every “Delegate” OUT is a “Report Back” IN. If you delegate something, the assignee needs to report back when done, or better still, at regular intervals. Having a true email makes reporting back as easy as the “Reply” button. Exception: It’s better to get most reports at regular meetings rather than one at a time. It’s a higher level of initiative and it minimizes interruptions. Making assignments via tasks instead of emails is just fine if they report back this way.
How to Do It When It Is Appropriate
If you decide it’s appropriate to send tasks (or send emails as tasks), here’s how to do it.
1) With Trog Bar. If both you and your recipient have Trog Bar software, just copy the email into an “Actionable Email” folder in their Outlook folders and Trog handles the rest. From there they can process it and/or click Open and hit Reply as a regular email. First create a folder (usually called “[Action]“) in their Outlook folders. Then tell Trog about this folder by clicking the [+] options button, selecting Profile and Folder Options, and assigning the “Actionable Email” category to it. Then set things up you you can put emails into their folder using one of these methods:
a) Exchange Server or shared Outlook folders. If you share folders over Exchange Server or some other way, you can assign tasks to them by dragging and dropping emails into their shared folder. Trog displays them in the Unprocessed Tasks list automatically. With Exchange Server, share the folder per the detailed instructions here.
b) And/Or Outlook Rules. For a lower-tech approach, hit Reply and add a “(W/F:Sue)” tag to the end of the Subject line. This says “I’m delegating this to Sue, and I’m Waiting For a reply.” Beforehand, set up a rule in Sue’s copy of Outlook to move all INCOMING emails with “(W/F:Sue)” in the subject into her [Action] folder. On your side, set up a rule to move a copy of all OUTGOING emails with “(W/F” in the subject into your own [Action] folder. This automatically puts a “Waiting For” task in your Unprocessed Tasks list if you delegate via email to anyone. Way cool.
2) With Outlook alone. You can follow the steps for #1 above in Outlook without the Trog Bar. Instead of dragging the email into a shared [Action] folder, drag it into a shared task list. The created task wil have no categories, which means it still needs to be processed.
3) With other tools. Remember the Milk supports Total, Relaxed Organization (TRO) and lets you send tasks into another person’s Inbox. See here for instructions on sending tasks to your RTM contacts. A version of the TRO Field Guide for Remember the Milk is due out shortly, with detailed self-training and coach-assisted training instructions, so stay tuned. Some other tools have similar features, especially if they support autoprocessing of emails into tasks. See the GTD Software Comparison Table and search for the word “autoprocess” on the page (hit Ctrl+F to search) to find those apps.
The Bottom Line
Yes, it’s definitely possible to send tasks to others. Just make sure it’s a good idea for your work situation. If you decide to use this approach, let us know how it is working for you in your organization.
