WEBVTT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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improve your communication and careers.

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

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I'm Matt Abrahams.

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I teach Strategic Communication at
Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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

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

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

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

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

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new ways to think fast and talk smart.

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

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founder and CEO of Superhuman.

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Rahul, welcome.

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Thanks for joining me.

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I'm excited for our conversation.

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Rahul Vohra: Absolutely.

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

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

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

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philosophy and why are you so fond of it?

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

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

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and the benefits of doing so are huge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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So number one, use Superhuman
to split your inbox.

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I actually get an email
every six to ten seconds.

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It's completely nuts.

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And what that means is the
urgent buries the important.

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We don't reply to our team.

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

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

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you're running your business on.

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

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

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So even when your inboxes
overflowing, you can still hit

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Inbox Zero where it masses most.

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So that's number one, split inbox.

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

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There are two ways of organizing an inbox.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Now you have to mark it as unread.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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sight because you're staying on top of it.

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

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

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

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you can look at in a few weeks.

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

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

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snooze them to when they should come back.

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

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

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

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

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I use snooze all the time.

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I prioritize when I wanna see them again.

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I archive versus carry them around.

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Psychologically, I am a better person.

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I feel it, and those around me feel it.

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I encourage everybody to try it.

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You can experiment with it and see.

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Some of our listeners might
not know what superhuman is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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But here we go.

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

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

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matter, so that you never drop the ball?

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You'd never miss great
opportunities and you save four

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hours or more every single week.

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

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

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And that's not all.

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We're reinventing the future
of productivity with AI.

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

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You would simply edit, then send.

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Sometimes you wouldn't even edit.

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

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path of creating Superhuman?

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

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

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

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called Reportive to LinkedIn.

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

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to where I lived in San Francisco.

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

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Lyft were having their heyday.

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So I was in the back of the Uber.

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On this trip, I finished some documents.

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I cleared out my email.

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I checked my calendar for tomorrow.

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I made dinner reservations
for that evening.

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I even called my mother.

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I was simultaneously being a
productive employee, a proactive

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boyfriend, and a present son.

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

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

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being able to do other things.

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

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

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Can you guess the one thing that
professionals spend the most

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

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

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bet would be being in meetings.

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Rahul Vohra: Close and close.

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

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But after sleep, it is of course email.

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

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

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

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trillion hours every single year.

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

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

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has certainly helped me in my time.

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

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who's part of this miniseries.

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Are you ready for that?

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Rahul Vohra: I'm ready.

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

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communicator you admire and why?

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

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in particular, I love his writing style.

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

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things I aim for when I write.

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

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saw a video of him writing.

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

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you could see other people writing?

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This was before Google
Docs, and it was eyeopening.

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He wrote every single sentence
at least a dozen times.

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Some he wrote two or three dozen times.

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

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I teach people to write at Superhuman.

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

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

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that he published way back in 2005.

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

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Writing, Briefly.

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Matt Abrahams: Thank
you for that reference.

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

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you need to work on as you've shared.

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

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

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

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

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the music play helps me focus more.

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Something in that vein that you use?

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

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

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specifically transcendental meditation.

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

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

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

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

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morning and once in the afternoon.

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

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

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I'm now more creative.

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

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communicating in a very intentional way.

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

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

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

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I appreciate you sharing that.

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Rahul, this has been fantastic.

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

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So thank you for that.

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And thank you for your time.

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Rahul Vohra: Of course.

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Thank you for having me.

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

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

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

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We appreciate Prezi's
sponsorship of these episodes.

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

00:10:45.105 --> 00:10:46.694
Our music is from Floyd Wonder.

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With special thanks to
Podium Podcast Company.

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wherever you get your podcasts.

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