Last night while watching TV I had my laptop, well on my lap, and I was going through my inbox. With all the spam deleted I still had more than 150 messages. They fell into 4 categories: 1) already read/answered/to be moved to the file cabinet; 2)new and need responses; 3)read a long time ago and haven't yet responded; 4)came in a long time and I haven't even read yet.
It is these last two categories that really bother me. I know how it happens - I get an email, read it don't have time to answer, and before I get back to it, I have received a bunch more emails and it gets buried. But really this isn't a good excuse.
Put simply, not reading or replying to an email in a timely manner is just plain unprofessional regardless of the excuse.
This is something I need to improve on immediately. Do you?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The company I work for actually offers a "class" on efficient handling of email. I've got a couple of pointers to offer.
***Don't look at every email the moment it comes in. This isn't rude, it is being efficient. Set up a schedule to read your email.
***Keep your inbox empty. It takes you time to reread those emails again and again. Set up folders for those emails you need to respond to. If you have to respond to them by a dead line, use a daily folder (i.e. place emails you must answer by Wednesday in the Wednesday folder).
***If your not going to respond to them, delete them, saving them makes your archive difficult to use.
This might seem obvious, but its an easy one to lose focus on. Email is the Memo of the modern workplace. Be mindful of what you write down. Many of your coworkers will simply forward your email on to others without regard to what you put into it.
***This last one is tough and will require me to be even more long winded. Write to your target audience. What technology "wave" do they think in (not always the same as the one they are born into.) People who are second and third wavers still read things so you will have to actually write the information out. People from the fourth wave like/need instant info. They will not read an entire email (and will never get this far into a post).
There is a technique that usually works well for all. Write a summary of what you want to say in an opening paragraph. Use white space to separate the opening paragraph and the a list of bullet points that expound on the summary. Use more white space and then write it again in your conclusion.
***Also always include a subject.
***People who read their email on mobile devices see no more then three words in a subject line.
The target audience portion of Jim's post is huge. The summary approach (important: put the summary at the TOP of the email) works wonders, especially if you have to write a technical email that must be CC:ed to management, for example.
I use a slightly different approach to email management. My style focuses on using the tools available in email clients, and breaks down to:
1) Use spam filters to sort out the junk.
2) Emails awaiting action are flagged as unread.
3) Emails requiring future action are copied to either my Outlook task list or calendar (I'm forced to use Outlook at work, but Thunderbird has similar features as well).
4) All my email (sent and received) is archived into folders by date. I remove all large attachments to save space. This allows me to use my mail client's search features the next time someone claims "you never told me (blank)", so that I can (tactfully) remind them that I did. (happens fairly often where I work).
5) I handle email first thing in the morning, over coffee. This is partially just a habit, but also helps me plan my day and prioritize what needs to get done. At the end of the day, I'll also make sure to review my email to see if I'm missing anything (or if I need to add anything to my todo list for tomorrow).
6) Emails through the day get handled the way I'd handle other interruptions, if it's critical enough (or if I have the time to handle it efficiently), I may handle it right away. If not, it will get tagged as unread, or moved to my calendar or task list. If it's not important or requires no action on my part, I let my email client mark it as read. From that point on, I typically will not re-read the email, unless it's needed for reference.
In my case, there are situations where I need to respond relatively immediately to email. This runs counter to how email "should" be used, but is a fact of life at my current company.
#6 above is where this can really break down. I try to apply the "Getting Things Done" approach (see Google or Wikipedia for a quick intro) for how to decide what to act upon.
--Rich
Post a Comment