Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

Transform how you communicate with tools that make your message stick.

Staying on top of communication starts with staying in control of your inbox. That’s why Rahul Vohra, founder and CEO of Superhuman, believes that how we manage email directly shapes how we manage our time, focus, and relationships.
For years, Superhuman has helped professionals reach Inbox Zero faster — reducing email overload and reclaiming time for what truly matters. In this episode of the Think Fast, Talk Smart Tech Tools miniseries, host Matt Abrahams talks with Vohra about the philosophy behind Inbox Zero, how better systems lead to clearer communication, and why mindfulness and intentional design can make us more effective communicators.
In addition to insight-packed discussions, this miniseries explores innovative tools that enhance the way we communicate and connect. Whether you want to make your presentations more memorable, craft stories that stick, or connect with your audience on a deeper level, these episodes will help you communicate with greater clarity, confidence, and impact.

Episode Reference Links:

Connect:

Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (01:18) - The Philosophy Behind Inbox Zero
  • (04:19) - The Superhuman Elevator Pitch
  • (05:50) - The Origin of Superhuman
  • (08:51) - Favorite Communicator
  • (09:54) - Communication Hack or Tool
  • (11:36) - Conclusion

 *******
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Creators and Guests

Host
Matt Abrahams
Lecturer Stanford University Graduate School of Business | Think Fast Talk Smart podcast host
Guest
Rahul Vohra
Founder and CEO of Superhuman

What is Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques?

One of the most essential ingredients to success in business and life is effective communication.

Join Matt Abrahams, best-selling author and Strategic Communication lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as he interviews experts to provide actionable insights that help you communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact. From handling impromptu questions to crafting compelling messages, Matt explores practical strategies for real-world communication challenges.

Whether you’re navigating a high-stakes presentation, perfecting your email tone, or speaking off the cuff, Think Fast, Talk Smart equips you with the tools, techniques, and best practices to express yourself effectively in any situation. Enhance your communication skills to elevate your career and build stronger professional relationships.

Tune in every Tuesday for new episodes. Subscribe now to unlock your potential as a thoughtful, impactful communicator. Learn more and sign up for our eNewsletter at fastersmarter.io.

Matt Abrahams: This Tech Tools miniseries
is brought to you by Prezi, the

presentation tool that makes your ideas
easy to follow, hard to forget, and

faster than ever to create with Prezi AI.

The best investment is in
the tools of one's own trade.

At Think Fast Talk Smart, we are
taking this quote by Benjamin

Franklin, the famous US inventor
and founding father, very seriously.

As you know, our show strives to share
tips and techniques to help you hone and

improve your communication and careers.

These practices and approaches can be
augmented with tools and technology.

I'm Matt Abrahams.

I teach Strategic Communication at
Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to this Tech Tools miniseries
of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

In this multi-part miniseries, we'll
introduce you to tools we use at Think

Fasts Talk Smart to help us be better
at our spoken and written communication.

And you'll learn best practices
from the founders who created them.

Taken together, we hope these
communication tools will help you find

new ways to think fast and talk smart.

I'm super excited today to speak
with Rahul Vohra, who is the

founder and CEO of Superhuman.

Rahul, welcome.

Thanks for joining me.

I'm excited for our conversation.

Rahul Vohra: Absolutely.

Thank you for having me,
and good to see you again.

Matt Abrahams: I know you're
a big proponent of Inbox Zero.

For those who don't know what that is,
can you share what is the Inbox Zero

philosophy and why are you so fond of it?

Rahul Vohra: Inbox Zero is the idea
that you should regularly, let's say

once per day, get to the point where
there are no emails left in your inbox,

and the benefits of doing so are huge.

Number one, if you've gone through
everything in your inbox, you

have no anxiety about what dangers
or horrors might lurk beneath.

If you come across anything that's
on fire or which is particularly

important, then number two, you are
now empowered to actually deal with it.

And number three, it saves you quite
a lot of time because you avoid the

trap of constantly peeking into emails
and then marking them as unread.

Now, I realize that a lot of folks
listening might be thinking, boy,

that sounds great, but I just get too
much email or, gee, I can't do that.

So I'll share just three of the
ways that Inbox Zero can be made

so much easier and which Superhuman
in particular can help you do so.

So number one, use Superhuman
to split your inbox.

I actually get an email
every six to ten seconds.

It's completely nuts.

And what that means is the
urgent buries the important.

We don't reply to our team.

We miss emails from our VIPs, and
we don't see important notifications

from tools like Notion or Figma
or Google Docs, whatever it is

you're running your business on.

Now, with split inbox, you can
actually create separate inboxes

for your team, your VIPs, your
most used tools, or anything else.

So even when your inboxes
overflowing, you can still hit

Inbox Zero where it masses most.

So that's number one, split inbox.

Number two, don't mark as
unread, archive instead.

There are two ways of organizing an inbox.

You can let your inbox grow infinitely and
treat all of the unread emails as the list

of things to do, or you can archive emails
when they're done and see the inbox itself

as the list of things to do, and it turns
out to be way faster to do the latter.

If unread emails are your to-do
list, that's the old fashioned

way, you then have to meticulously
maintain the unread status.

Let's say you receive an intriguing
email, you can't help but open it.

Now you have to mark it as unread.

But wait, there's one more
thing you want to check.

So you open it again, and then once
again you have to mark it as unread.

If your inbox itself is your
to-do list, you avoid this weird,

archaic ritual because you simply
archive emails when they're done,

they disappear from your inbox and
they're easily found by a search.

All you see are the list of things yet to
do, and the end of the list is plainly in

sight because you're staying on top of it.

And then number three, if you can't do it
today, snooze it to when you can do it.

You don't need to look at the whole
list every day or even tomorrow.

Some things you can look at
in a few days and other things

you can look at in a few weeks.

So instead of carrying the full list of
things to do in your inbox, which is as

crazy as carrying all of your material
possessions in your backpack, simply

snooze them to when they should come back.

So those are the three ways to hit
inbox zero and why you should do it.

Matt Abrahams: I experience a lot
of inbox anxiety and knowing I have

a lot in my inbox, wondering what's
in there, the approaches you've just

mentioned, Inbox Zero, have really
fundamentally changed my life.

I use snooze all the time.

I prioritize when I wanna see them again.

I archive versus carry them around.

Psychologically, I am a better person.

I feel it, and those around me feel it.

I encourage everybody to try it.

You can experiment with it and see.

Some of our listeners might
not know what superhuman is.

Can you share what your product does
using the elevator pitch structure that I

teach my MBA students, so it's finishing
these sentences, what if you could, so

that, for example, and that's not all.

Rahul Vohra: Of course, and by
the way, I love the structure.

As soon as I saw it, I immediately
shared it with my team.

I was so proud of what I'd
written for this podcast.

So I think we'll be using
it internally from now on.

But here we go.

What if you could get through your
inbox twice as fast as before, follow

up on time every time, and respond
faster to the things that really

matter, so that you never drop the ball?

You'd never miss great
opportunities and you save four

hours or more every single week.

For example, our customers split their
inbox into the streams of work that

matter most, so they can immediately
focus on what needs their attention.

And that's not all.

We're reinventing the future
of productivity with AI.

Imagine waking up to an inbox where
every email already has a draft reply.

You would simply edit, then send.

Sometimes you wouldn't even edit.

Matt Abrahams: Can you share
what led you to go down this

path of creating Superhuman?

Rahul Vohra: When I started Superhuman,
I wanted to solve the biggest possible

problem, and email is a way bigger
problem than most people actually realize.

It hit me just after I sold
my last company, which was

called Reportive to LinkedIn.

I was commuting from work, which
was in Mountain View at the time

to where I lived in San Francisco.

It's about one hour, but this
was 2014, and both Uber and

Lyft were having their heyday.

So I was in the back of the Uber.

On this trip, I finished some documents.

I cleared out my email.

I checked my calendar for tomorrow.

I made dinner reservations
for that evening.

I even called my mother.

I was simultaneously being a
productive employee, a proactive

boyfriend, and a present son.

And I realized that the real magic
of Uber or Lyft was not commuting.

It was not about getting from
A to B. It was about time,

being able to do other things.

So I asked myself the question,
where do we spend all of our time?

And Matt, I'm gonna ask you a question.

Can you guess the one thing that
professionals spend the most

time doing, and I warn you in
advance, this is a trick question.

Matt Abrahams: Well, so I was going
to say email, but I guess my second

bet would be being in meetings.

Rahul Vohra: Close and close.

It is actually sleep, it is sleeping,
and I have no idea how to fix sleep.

But after sleep, it is of course email.

And in fact, there are roughly one
billion professionals in the world,

and on average we spend three hours
a day reading and writing email.

So that's three billion hours
every single day or north of one

trillion hours every single year.

Matt Abrahams: So what drove you to
this was your own realization about

your time usage and how you could
help others with theirs, and it

has certainly helped me in my time.

Before we end, I'd like to ask you two
questions that I'm asking everybody

who's part of this miniseries.

Are you ready for that?

Rahul Vohra: I'm ready.

Matt Abrahams: So number one,
I'd love to know who is a

communicator you admire and why?

Rahul Vohra: I really admire Paul Graham,
one of the founders of Y Combinator and

in particular, I love his writing style.

It is clear, it is concise, it
is persuasive, it is all the

things I aim for when I write.

And I think it was about five
maybe seven years ago, I actually

saw a video of him writing.

There was a particular YC startup
and their whole shtick was, what if

you could see other people writing?

This was before Google
Docs, and it was eyeopening.

He wrote every single sentence
at least a dozen times.

Some he wrote two or three dozen times.

And as a designer, as a craftsperson, that
really spoke to me, and it is exactly how

I teach people to write at Superhuman.

We as a company, we take
our writing very seriously.

Now, fortunately, he's codified all
of his rules in a very short essay

that he published way back in 2005.

If folks are interested to check that
out, it is called Writing, Briefly.

Writing, Briefly.

Matt Abrahams: Thank
you for that reference.

The ability to capture ideas concisely
and clearly is an art, and one that

you need to work on as you've shared.

Question number two, beyond your tool
and some of the ideas that you've

shared with us, is there one hack or
shortcut that you use that helps you?

So I'll share one just
to give you an idea.

I find that when I play music and I need
to really do some intense focus, having

the music play helps me focus more.

Something in that vein that you use?

Rahul Vohra: I would say the single
practice that has had the biggest

impact on my own productivity, my
own communication is meditation and

specifically transcendental meditation.

In fact, before we jumped on to
record this podcast, I spent precisely

twenty-three minutes as it was,
twenty minutes in the meditation

itself, and three minutes of physical
relaxation afterwards to get ready.

I now practice transcendental
meditation twice a day, once in the

morning and once in the afternoon.

And I'm excited to share that
it's really been life changing.

Initially, I simply felt happier, and then
later the effects became more profound.

I'm now more creative.

I can stay focused for much longer, and
I'm much calmer and clearer when I am

communicating in a very intentional way.

Matt Abrahams: As somebody who also
practices meditation, I can espouse

how it absolutely helps you focus,
gives you energy, and really can

reinvigorate you not just in the
short term but over in the long term.

I appreciate you sharing that.

Rahul, this has been fantastic.

I want to give you a thank you for sharing
insights beyond the tool that you provide.

So thank you for that.

And thank you for your time.

Rahul Vohra: Of course.

Thank you for having me.

Matt Abrahams: Thank you for
joining us for one of our

Communication Tools episodes of
Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

Please be sure to listen to all of
the episodes in this miniseries.

We appreciate Prezi's
sponsorship of these episodes.

This episode was produced by Katherine
Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams.

Our music is from Floyd Wonder.

With special thanks to
Podium Podcast Company.

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