What do three smartphones, two showers a day and a cookie have to do with Mark Cuban’s regiment to manage the more than 700 emails he gets every day and to finish each of those days with less than 20 unread messages? For Cuban, a Dallas resident best known as a long-time judge on TV’s Shark Tank show (he retired this year) and the former owner of the city’s Maverick’s basketball team, email is a powerful business tool he uses to manage his time, saving those messages as reference points years and even decades later.
.png?width=521&height=347&name=D2B%20Blog%20Image-38%20(1).png)
The online newsletter Business Insider recently interviewed Cuban on his rather specialized way of dealing with emails...then again Cuban is well known for his unorthodox approach to managing businesses. He said he’s been on email since the 1980s and the days of CompuServe and in fact still has some of those emails from back in the day. He said he uses two Android and one iPhone device, never has an assistant handle his email (“that just slows things down) and only uses AI for autoresponses or as a typing hack aid.
Some other highlights of the interview:
How is he reading his emails?
"I read and respond to emails. I work out. I read and respond to emails. I do a couple Zooms. Then I read and respond to emails. Then I eat dinner. Then I read and respond to emails." The first of his two daily showers, some decaf and a cookie before taking his daughter to school and another workout are mixed in to the emails he told Business Insider
Why email versus other forms of communications?
“It's asynchronous. I can write or respond any time, from anywhere in the world. That makes things much easier. There's also really no limit to the type or format of the content. I can include it in emails or attach whatever.”
How does he organize his emails?
“I have folders. I used to have too many emails, and Gmail couldn't keep up, so I had to segregate them into different accounts. Now, that typically isn't an issue. I spend most of my day trying to get my unreads under 20. It acts as my tickler file and keeps what's important to me, right in front of me.”
What do others say about your email habits?
“They usually comment that I'll respond or create emails at all hours of the day. Which is fact. If it comes to mind, I'm writing and sending. Or if the only time I have to clean up my inbox is after everyone is in bed, that's when I'll work. I have a hard time disconnecting. It's faster to just get it out of the way.”
Good enough for a billionaire...good enough for us.