Tips for the e-mail user
From Professor Christina Cavanagh, author of the book "Managing Your E-Mail: Thinking Outside the Inbox"
Managing our e-mails is one of the most important skills in the office these days. By following a few tips the relationship with our inbox might just get better.
• Purge, scan then, read. Quickly delete obvious low-value or aged messages first. Then scan subject lines for priority mail; respond to these immediately; do the same (scan, prioritize, and read) with the remaining messages.
• Thin out. If you get a series of messages on the same topic, read the last one first; usually you can then delete all the others.
• These above steps could reduce in-box message volumes by 60 percent in as little as ten minutes.
• If you cannot use it, nuke it. Avoid the keep-as-new trap. Do not be one of those who use e-mail subject headers as reminders to perform tasks or get in touch with contacts. Before long, in boxes bulge at the seams and reminders go unnoticed.
• Consider alternatives. Before responding to a series of replies that are turning into e-mail pingpong, ask whether it would not be more effective to pick up the phone. We can get so hooked on using newer technology that we forget the basics can still be more efficient. If you get a person's voice mail, do not trade e-mail pingpong for phone tag. Give specific times you will be available to chat.
• Feel free to ask individuals to stop sending unimportant messages. The same applies to associations and vendors who want your business.
• Do not be a CC rider. Each time you get an unwanted e-mail on which you've been copied with a slew of others, ask to be removed from the list. If you are legitimately on a list, then do not use email as a collaboration tool and reply to everyone on everything; only respond to the original sender.
• Use your utilities. If certain CC lists are useful, use e-mail utilities to automatically color-code them as they enter your inbox. You will see the copies at a glance and read them as time allows. Other tools include out-of-office assistant and preview panes.
• Less is more. Respond to e-mail only when a reply is absolutely required. Needless responses, like thank-you's and acknowledgements just produce more unwanted e-mail.
• Avoid the reply-to-all feature. Skip it unless your message is important to everyone on the list.
• Be a model e-mailer. Use clear, descriptive subject headings, and state your purpose in the first sentence. Keep messages brief with short paragraphs and bullet points to make them easy to read or scan.
• E is for easy and efficient. If you are laboring over an e-mail, you are probably tackling a subject better handled on the phone or in person.
• E does not stand for emotional. Do not send a potentially contentious or reactive e-mail without sleeping on it first. The delay in sending could save many more hours of wasted time and energy managing the original intent of the message.
