Meet the GreenLite Team

As the lead developer at GreenLite my time is worth more than gold. I have to make sure that every minute I spend at work is devoted to developing and delivering low-cost websites. My time management skills are surpassed only by my ninja-like development skills. In my first installment of blog posts I'm going to share some tips on productivity. Today, we'll tackle one of the biggest time sinks in any office - email.

As our compnay grows, I'm finding that more and more of my time is spent checking, replying to, and acting on email. This is a growing problem, as development requires patience and intense concentration. To me, email is like someone standing beside me, poking me in the side all day:

*poke* "Hey Chris, the server is up"

*poke* "Hey Chris, the server is up"

*poke* "Hey Chris, the server is up"

It's often annoying, but always necessary.

Email at intervals

The worst thing about email is that it interrupts me. It's rude. I will be happily typing away, engrossed in a project, when all of a sudden a message notification appears on the screen and breaks my train of thought. After I reply, which always takes longer than I expect, I have to spend several minutes backtracking my steps. It never seems like much time, but it adds up. My solution? I set up certain times for checking email and stick to them.

I used to respond to email as soon as it arrived, but now (unless it's urgent) I will not act until one of my "email times" comes around. For me, this equates to once in the morning, once around lunch and once near the end of the day. The exception though is urgent or emergency mail. Thanks to the office environment at GreenLite this is never a problem though. Jeff sits right behind me and if there is ever an emergency he will turn around, tap me on the shoulder and let me know. Of course, being the wizard I am, there are never any problems.

Categories and Actions

After you get out of the habit of constantly checking your email, you need to properly categorize it. My categorization is incredibly simple. I have 3 folders: "Now," "Later," and "Archive." If you think about it there are really only 2 kinds of email - action email and information email. Action email includes tasks that need to be completed at some point, whereas information email is just for your records.

When it comes time to check my email I quickly skim each message. I will then sort the mail into one of the three folders. Actions can be placed in either "Now" or "Later," depending on their urgency. Information, if it's worth holding on to, will go to the Archive. The goal is to have no messages in my inbox when I finish categorizing.

After my inbox has been cleansed, I open up the "Now" folder and go to work. As I complete tasks, I delete the corresponding message. It's shocking, I know...but I actually delete email. As the "Now" folder clears up, message from "Later" can be moved over.

Delete, delete, delete

This may sound terrifying to some, but you cannot be afraid to delete email. Email, after all, should not be the primary mode of communication in any office. It's a quick reminder. If something is truly important, you will get a phone call or a tap on the shoulder. Do you really need to keep that memo about casual Fridays? I love deleting email. There is nothing more beautiful than an empty inbox. You don't even have to delete your mail to have an empty inbox. If you use some folder scheme you can archive it - and probably reduce search times when you need to find something in the future. I always try to leave work with an empty inbox so that when I return the next morning I only have a handful of messages to skim, categorize and act upon.

So, please, do yourself and your mail servers a favor by taking control of your email. If you have additional suggestions, please post a comment or email me *sigh* at chris.moylan@greenliteweb.com

Six months ago I founded GreenLite with the goal of delivering beautiful and functional websites at an affordable price. As we move into our seventh month of existence I'm pleased to see how quickly the concept has taken off and how fast the company has grown. Despite many challenges, it's gone so much better than I ever imagined.

As I consider the reasons for our success I think the following are the most important; 1) focus on people and relationships, everything works better when staff, customers and vendors understand that you truly value them and their input, opinions and needs, 2) A collaborative, inclusive work environment, but not to the extent of consensus management, 3) Making decisions early about what the company stands for and what we will and won't do, then being comfortable saying NO when it makes sense to do so.

All three of the items above are directly driven by company culture; it determines everything from how you do things to how you feel about your work. Like a brand, culture requires real, active management on an ongoing basis. It has to be protected, nurtured and shepherded every day. It guides and drives people, and becomes self-perpetuating after a time. An effective culture isn't a prerequisite for making a profit, but it's an essential part of any great enterprise, and every company that people love to work for or do business with.

After looking in to a variety of options, it looks like we found a way to provide low-cost startup websites for small businesses, nonprofit organizations, personal use... or anyone else who wants to get known on the web. The challenge was that we want these websites to be functional: we know our future customers will want to post info, sell their products, write blogs, create RSS feeds, and do everything else that makes the web the premier form of informational media.