Category: Time Management

Making Email Better – Part 2

Posted on by

EmailOverloadYou are the Cure for Email Overload

Part 1 of Making Email Better observed that how we use email significantly contributes to its negative effects on our productivity and sense of satisfaction. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported on a UK study that found up to 80% of email traffic is a “waste!”

 

Better Mechanics and Better Messaging

We established that focusing on Better Mechanics – use of the tool – and Better Messaging – the manner of communicating – makes email more effective and productive. We covered three best practices suggestions for each. You can review those here.

[…]

Making Email Better – Part 1

Posted on by

EmailHellSwimming in Email
We are overwhelmed with the flood of email. They flow into our inboxes unabated like the ocean tides. We struggle to keep up, often ending the day feeling that we’ve only treaded water.

How can this situation get better? Technology solutions, like spam filters, have helped. But what about all the email that we legitimately receive? What can be done to stem the rising tide?

We are Them – A Dichotomy
The irony of our situation is that we’re doing it to ourselves. This is not the work of auto-bots. Other people are sending us email, and we are sending them email. Focusing on receiver-centeric behaviors – managing the inbound flow – can only help us so much. Receiver-centric efforts are like putting a bandaid on the problem. […]

Making Time To Be On Time

Posted on by

Waiting_BoredBruce Turkel is a nationally recognized expert on branding. He’s also a prolific blogger, one that I follow. Bruce recently wrote about his serendipitous early arrival to the airport in a post titled “Early To Bed. Early To Rise.” It’s a worthy read.

I commented on his post, focusing my message on the importance of being on time. It’s what I call Making Time To Be On Time.  Here’s the way I see it.

Why Being On Time Is Important

Being on time – in any form and for any purpose – is important in three specific ways:

  • Leadership – Being on time demonstrates leadership.  It communicates that we command our schedule and we fulfill our obligations. Others follow those who lead, resulting in more people showing up on time.
  • Respect – Being on time respects other peoples’ time. Forcing others to wait for us is impolite regardless of the reason. They’ve made time for us and we are professionally obligated to make good use of that time.
  • Productivity – Being on time is productive. As obvious as this seems, many miss the point. Gathering people for a meeting consumes two valuable and limited resources – money and time. When meetings start late and, as a result, run long, time is lost, productivity is lost and money is wasted. The aggregated effects of that loss can be staggering.

[…]

The S.M.A.R.T. Email Credo – The T

Posted on by

Chapter5_1What Does the T Stand For?
The T in S.M.A.R.T. stands for Time Usage. People are overwhelmed by the amount of e-mail they must handle each day. There are a number of reasons for this, including

  • the global and ubiquitous availability of e-mail,
  • the ability to communicate asynchronously, and
  • the use of e-mail to replace other forms of communication, namely, telephone calls and face-to-face meetings.

Our use of and reliance on e-mail is largely positive. We accomplish much more now than even a few years ago because we can communicate with others on our schedule and they on theirs. However, some of our e-mail habits are big time wasters from a recipient’s standpoint. Some of these habits have been covered earlier in this Credo, some merit repeating, and some of the suggestions below are new. The objective here is to ask e-mail senders to consider—be mindful of—the recipient’s time.

Here’s a simple question to ask: Is the e-mail I’m sending a good use of the recipient’s time? Remember, they are like you. They get too many e-mails a day, just like you do. They are pushed for time and need to get a lot of things done, just like you do.

[…]

The S.M.A.R.T. Email Credo – The R

Posted on by

Part4The R in S.M.A.R.T. stands for Recipient Focused. Effective use of e-mail requires focusing on how your recipients will receive your e-mail and what they need to know to be fully informed by it. We might term this empathetic sending because we need to put ourselves in the recipient’s shoes to ensure we are communicating effectively with them.

Transferring the information in our heads to our recipient is difficult in any medium. Leaving out important context, background information, and companion information leaves the recipient without all the pieces of the puzzle. Including the pertinent information increases the effectiveness of our communication and reduces the inefficient back-and-forth required when clarification is needed.

E-mail is particularly susceptible to the risk of insufficient supporting information. It’s a silent form of communication—the thoughts we are communicating start in our head and transfer to our fingers. Our fingers will never work as quickly as our thoughts do. Thus, there is the inherent risk of information loss along the way. Moreover, we treat e-mail as a quick form of communication, and quick does not guarantee effective or inclusive.

[…]

S.M.A.R.T. Email Credo – The "A"

Posted on by

part3Author’s Note: This is the third in a series of articles advocating that people and their organizations adopt the S.M.A.R.T. Email Credo. The Credo focuses on the sender’s role in the email overload problem. Better sender behavior reduces the time spent by and the stress on recipients when handling email. An explanation of the what and why of the Credo can be read at the beginning of Part 1 here. 

What Does the A Stand for?

The A in S.M.A.R.T. stands for Addressing. Effective use of email requires focusing on who your recipients are and where to place them on the recipient list – To, CC or BCC.

Email is a terrific and often effective communication tool. However, its overuse is the cause of email overload. There are several aspects to this overuse, including over-reliance on the tool and misuse of the tool. Focusing on the recipients of the email we send speaks to the misuse aspect. By limiting the recipient list of an email to only those who need the information being transmitted reduces the number of emails received. Fewer emails received equals less overload.

[…]

S.M.A.R.T. Email Credo – The "M"

Posted on by

Part2Author’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles advocating that people and their organizations adopt the S.M.A.R.T. Email Credo. The Credo focuses on the sender’s role in the email overload problem. Better sender behavior reduces the time spent by and the stress on recipients when handling email. An explanation of the what and why of the Credo can be read at the beginning of Part 1 here.

What does the M stand for?

The M in S.M.A.R.T. stands for message formatting. Utilizing email effectively includes focusing on how to format messages that communicate efficiently.

Email exists in the wide space between hard-copy written communication and real-time verbal communication. Email is often conversational in structure, yet the recipient could be hours or days from responding. Leaving the dichotomy of immediate response expectations aside, emails also lack the non-verbal feedback received during real-time communication – tone and, if in person, body language. Recipient confusion is the result of poor email formatting and minimal surrounding clues due to this asynchronous communication environment.

[…]

S.M.A.R.T. Email Credo – The "S"

Posted on by
Part1Author’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles advocating that people and their organizations adopt the S.M.A.R.T. Email Credo. The Credo focuses on the sender’s role in the email overload problem. Better sender behavior reduces the time spent by and the stress on recipients when handling email.

Why Does This Matter?

We currently spend 2.8 hours per day handling email (Basex, Inc.). Global use of email is growing 13% per year and will continue to do so through at least 2016 (Radacati Group). We are overwhelmed with email volumes and the situation is getting worse (Wall Street Journal).

[…]

The Boon & Bane of Email – Self-Assessment and Suggestions

Posted on by

WorldEmailEditors Note: This is a guest article by Bret Beresford-Wood. He is the founder and CEO of RepriseMail. RepriseMail is an app for Outlook that lets people discover, compare and improve how they use email. You can learn more about Bret and RepriseMail at www.reprisemail.com. 

Email. It’s the app we love to hate. We’re overwhelmed by it most days, yet we couldn’t do our work effectively without it!

In our work with busy professionals we have identified five common email productivity killers. They are presented below in a self-assessment format so you can determine if your productivity is suffering from any of them. Also included are some suggested solutions you can use to make email more productive.

[…]

It's Not About Time; It's About Focus

Posted on by

magnifying_glass_2Time cannot be managed. It ticks inexorably forward. What we do with our time can be managed, and that’s what matters. So it’s not about time, it’s about focusing our effort on the things we want to accomplish.

Another word for accomplishment is productivity. Productivity is getting things done. We like to get things done. It’s makes us feel good – successful. The more successful we feel, the better use we are making of our time.

Productivity results from focused effort, not mere activity. Many people confuse activity with productivity. Activity is about motion itself. Productivity is about forward motion – accomplishment. Activity is often noisy; productivity is generally quiet.

  • Question: How can we be more productive during our distraction-rich and interruption-riddled days?
  • Answer: We can quiet down our physical and mental spaces.

[…]