« One System Does Not Fit All | Main | Striking the balance between defining and doing »
October 13, 2008
Attacking the Email Monster
Email out of control?
Exploding email in-boxes are an ever-increasing source of suffering and frustration for today's knowledge workers. In my one-on-one coaching with clients I sometimes see daily email loads hitting 200-350 emails per day. How is anyone supposed to keep up with that!?
I've collected below several ideas for how to overcome email overwhelm. The ideas focus on the basics of how to manage an inbox, and the practices individuals can do to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the emails they send and receive.
The Basics of Email Processing
Consider that in order to stay in control of your emails you must regularly spend the necessary time to assess and define all the next actions and projects that may be sparked by them. Next time you process your email try the following tips:
- Don't leave an email in your in-box once you've define what needs to happen with it. For instance: if it's junk, trash it; if it's actionable, drag it to a "NEXT ACTIONS" folder or create a task on your task list with the email attached; if it's reference, get it to the appropriate email reference folder or create a new one. In other words, try to not let your in-box become an overwhelming collection of unclear open-loops dragging down your psyche. Close the loops as you empty your in-box - and yes, you can regularly get your in-box to zero!
- Use the Two-Minute rule. While processing your in-box, if an email is actionable and the action can be done in less than two minutes, do it right away. Why let the email pile up in your in-box or task list if you can do it that quickly? Consistently applying this rule will energize your email processing time and prevent days of procrastination.
Renegotiate with the Sources of Your Emails
Sometimes the reason an email in-box is overflowing is because the sources of the email have been allowed to grow unchecked. I don't know how many times I've seen clients dramatically cut their daily in-box total by 30-50% just by taking the time to renegotiate which emails actually get sent to them. In other words:
- Unsubscribe from newsletters, marketing messages, and team cc lists you no longer need to see.
- Use your junk mail feature to prevent future marketing messages from hitting your inbox.
- Create email rules to pre-process certain emails directly to reference folders if you know you'll never need to take action on them but want to keep them as available reference.
- Always look out for opportunities to unsubscribe from lists and renegotiate with senders of recurring emails you don't need.
- To cut down on pileup when you're traveling, use the "out-of-office" feature of your email, in addition to your voice mail, to notify people when you are traveling.
Create Clear Agreements About Email
Come to agreement with your teammates about how email is and is not to be used. For example, if there is no response requested or required, is an "I got it" email even required? Is everyone expected to respond to all emails within a certain number of hours or days, or not? Should a phone call or IM be used instead of email if the information is urgent? Working out these basic questions can save your team a lot of time and energy.
You might come to agreement about certain codes to use to assist each other in processing email. Certain acronyms used in subject lines can help teammates quickly identify action items and other important messages. Sample acronyms: "AR" = Action Required; "MSR" = Monthly Status Report.
Another very useful code is "EOM", which means End of Message. If the information you are sending can all fit on a single line of text on the subject line of the message why type it into the body? This allows your recipients to get your point without even opening the body of the email. Just end the subject line with "EOM" and make sure everyone on your team knows what that means. "NNB" is another example of the same thing: Nothing New Below.
Choose Recipients Wisely
When possible, try to limit the number of recipients on the "TO:" line to one. Send group mail only when it is really useful or required for all recipients. Use "reply-to-all" and "CC:" buttons sparingly. Come to an agreement with your teammates that being on the "CC:" line means that you're only being informed FYI and no response is necessary.
When an organization or team is plagued by emails with too many recipients in the "TO:" field, it is often an indication that there are not clear and separate roles and responsibilities defined among colleagues. This could be a symptom of a larger problem. If five people are sent a request and all are in the "TO:" line, it may not be quite clear who's really supposed to take action.
Be Courteous
Do your part to help your recipients understand and process your emails easier and faster. Remember that everyone will benefit from fewer, clearer emails in their in-boxes, including you. What goes around comes around.
- When forwarding a message or replying to all, take the time to change the subject line if the reason for the email has changed.
- If you are forwarding a long string of messages to someone new, briefly summarize the conversation so they don't have to read every bit of the trail.
- If you send a 20-page attachment, be specific and tell the recipient that the important information is on pages 2 and 17.
- Be thoughtful about large attachments, especially if your company culture is dependent on mobile email devices. Consider using a link to a folder on a shared network.
I know there must be more great email processing tips that I'm missing here. Please chime in and add to the knowledge (but don't send me an email! ;-)
Posted by mdolan at October 13, 2008 11:25 AM
Comments
Rules, Rules, and Rules. Get familiar with the rules and filtering features of your email program and create as many as you need to sort newsletters, work email, personal email, etc. into various folders.
You'll feel a lot less overwhelmed when the "Downloading 45 new messages" window comes up but then you only see 8 in your inbox. (everything that doesn't need immediate action was sorted into various folders automatically).
Tim Bourquin
http://www.SmallBusinessExpo.com
Posted by: Tim Bourquin at October 13, 2008 03:13 PM
Great article. Two more tips that work for me:
1. for short emails, use the subject line only for the message - the main point.
2. Set a limit on piling on with back and forth emails. My rule: after a string of four, I pick up the phone.
Posted by: kevin wilde at October 13, 2008 06:57 PM
Another idea: one discrete item per email.
Michael - excellent article with some great ideas!
One more tip for teams: if the team is either "dialed in" to the GTD methodology, or at least aware that you use this type of system, then ask (or train) team members to keep emails limited to a single "discrete" (and I don't mean 'secretive' here!) item per message.
I'm much more likely to be able to rapidly open, assess, and (thanks to the 2-minute rule) dispatch an email containing a single item or issue than an email containing 5 or 6 different items relating to different topics, issues or projects. Those emails take significantly longer to process and are much more complex to spawn 5-6 next action list items using tools such as the Outlook Add-In.
I showed my wife how I used the Add-In to process an email into a list and how much easier it was to process a single discrete item per message.
While this does increase the volume of email messages, it greatly simplifies processing. It's one example where the goal may not always be reducing the sheer number of emails...
Regards,
Peter Gallant
Posted by: Peter Gallant at October 17, 2008 07:54 AM
Tim, Kevin and Peter -
Thanks for the ideas. It's occuring to me that this subject is so rich that we could probably write an entire book about it!
I wonder what new technologies around the bend will continue to transform our relationship to this medium...
Posted by: Michael Dolan at October 17, 2008 10:54 AM
Great advice here Michael! Some of you may be interested to know that Michael Kastler, host of TechTalk on a Chicago radio station, declared on air that he was a huge follower of GTD and Taglocity 2.0 for Outlook 'synchronizes into it so well' (btw, the Standard Edition is free). Find out more here if you're interested: http://blog.taglocity.com/blog/bid/6324/Taglocity-on-TechTalk-WRLR-98-3FM
Posted by: Dave at October 24, 2008 11:12 PM
One of the best tips on how to deal with ever-growing emails. We get hundreds of mails about Social Marketing , and this is one great solution to dealing with them.
I have now subscribed to your RSS feed, and also bookmarked this page.
Lovely resource. :)
--
Helen Hunt
Social Marketing Manager
Anylabs Technologies
Posted by: Helen Hunt - Social Marketing at October 28, 2008 05:16 AM
I enjoyed the pro-active approach of your suggestions, especially in the section Choose Recipients Wisely. It seems that many people take massive amounts of email as a given when, as you mention, it well can be in part due to lack of definition of roles and responsibilities. Clarifying here can not only cut down on emails received but can carry over into saving time and energy in other areas as well.
My additional two cents is to approach the email inbox with strong, clear intention--no browsing! Meaning, if I go to my inbox and open up a message, process it. Period. No, "I'll deal with that later" allowed.
Posted by: Shawn Tuttle at November 1, 2008 04:01 PM
Good post, and I especially agree with your suggestions on gaining agreement on how to use email and not contributing to occupational spam.
I recently wrote an article with email tips for Forbes that might be of interest.
http://www.forbes.com/cionetwork/2008/10/15/cio-email-manage-tech-cio-cx_rm_1015email.html
Posted by: Ross Mayfield at November 11, 2008 09:33 AM
Michael (and others) -- Your tips and suggestions clearly provide an effective means for managing your inbox.
You write quite a bit about team and arriving at a collective understanding of how the email process should be handled. The suggestions there are quite good. But to avoid many of the nuances and headaches that accompany what can be a confusing and annoying communication channel, we've found it truly valuable to open up community or shared inboxes to organization at large.
Email Center Pro changes the concept of email management by creating a workable division between personal email and the more general messages that flood inboxes like sales@, info@ or customer_service@. The service is the most effective way currently available to small businesses for dealing with those messages.
Posted by: Jason Gallic at November 11, 2008 10:43 AM
I found your site via the Alltop widget on my blog. I wrote the following comment on Anita Campbell's Small Business Trends on her post, Spam Reduced 66% Worldwide After One Company Shuttered. Here is an excerpt:
Right now I have 3000 messages in my spam folder and 60000 messages in my inbox! ;) I will start from a clean scratch on January 1, 2009, and apply Dave Allen's management system called Getting Things Done, once and for all. One thing is to keep your inbox clean and tidy! I use Gmail and it is easy to search for important messages and you could also use stars and labels. But I am interested in getting tips on new email programs now then I have got a PC machine too. Could you use the synchronization feature with other email programs than Outlook, if you want to update your mobile phone? (I have a smartphone Qtek / HTC.) I remember that I looked at a program called Eudora many years ago.
In one way I wonder if sorting your email messages in different folders is the most efficient way of doing it, instead of searching as I am doing it now.
Please feel free to read my blog post from 2005, What's in your inbox. I appreciate and welcome an email message from YOU! :)
All the Best,
Martin Lindeskog - American in Spirit.
Gothenburg, Sweden.
Posted by: Martin Lindeskog at November 16, 2008 03:13 AM
