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Email Killing Your Productivity? Here Are 9 Ways to Fight Back.
A new operating model for emails
Create a new operating model for your organization’s emails. This should include:
- Knowing when to email vs. communicating in other ways.
- Embracing other platforms for collaborating and communicating. Use internal messaging services to connect with your team quickly.
- Ban “reply all.”
- Share email productivity tips that you have found successful.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
The Zen Master's Guide to Email Productivity | Process Street | Checklist, Workflow and SOP Software
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Key Ideas
Determine What The Sender Needs From You Asap
Ask yourself:
- What’s the meaning and the value of the message?
- What action does this message require of me?
Suggested Email Structure
- Greeting
- Pleasantry
- How you got their details, call back and reason for email
- Body Topic: Situation, Benefit, Call to Action
- Closing line
- Signature
Habits For Efficient Email Processing
- Do – If it’s actionable, execute the task and archive.
- Delegate – Forward it on.
- Defer – Decide to do it later (snooze it until a concrete time).
- Delete – If possible, do it to reduce your inbox.
- File – If necessary, tag it and set a reminder for later to process items in that tag.
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Key Ideas
Email and productivity
More than one-quarter of a worker's day on average is spent answ...
Set aside time
... to read and respond to email. Don’t leave your email program open all day long. Alerts from incoming messages can interrupt your work flow. Instead, schedule specific blocks of time throughout the day for checking your email.
You might even try marking your calendar and setting your availability to “busy.” If necessary, turn off your cellphone and shut your office door to prevent interruptions.
Take action immediately
- browse the inbox for emails that can be immediately deleted (spam or promotional emails). Then select messages that don’t require a response and delete or archive them.
- Don’t let important emails sit in your inbox for days. Unless you’re on vacation, respond within 48 hours. Reply to the sender as soon as you’ve read his or her message.
- If you’re unable to respond immediately, communicate to the sender that you received the message and will be in touch shortly. Set a deadline and follow up.
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Key Ideas
The psychology behind email
- Realize that email triggers intermittent variable rewards. Our brains love pulling a lever (i.e. refreshing email) and knowing that the reward (i.e. the number of messages) will vary
When you do hit send, be precise
E-mail is not a substitute for conversations.
Avoid asking open-ended questions and save yourself from the “boomerang effect” (that’s when you invite more email into your inbox than you intended, as a result of having sent out an email in the first place). Be concise in your message and specify the TL;DR and/or requested action upfront.
Find the right downstream systems
The blockage is not email itself, but where all these messages should ultimately go, which requires setting up the right downstream systems.
As you process each message, give yourself five (and only five) options: responding directly or sending the item into whatever system you’re using to manage one of these four buckets.