Email use continues its upward climb. The Radicati Group recently reported that email is growing at five percent per year and will to do so through 2019. Though growth is slowing, the existing volume makes any increase problematic.
Sorting through email takes a lot of time each day, and keeping track of what needs our attention is overwhelming. What if there was a quick and easy way to decide what to do with every email? […]
You 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.
Swimming 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. […]
What 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
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.
Author’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.
Author’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.
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.
Editors 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.
We need a better way! A better way to deal with all the stuff; the stuff coming at us all day long; the stuff we have to do – today, tomorrow and the days that follow. What we need is a simple, clear way to process everything that’s already in and coming into our day.[…]