It has happened to all of us. Those email messages that are just not – for us – in any way. And THEN, they send you more of the same. Argghhh!
I get this question alot, and yes, I do have some advice for you…
Either…
1. address it in person, with friendly dialogue or
2. ignore it.
The worst thing you can do is send an email telling them not to send these things. Why? They will most likely interpret your tone MUCH WORSE than you intended, and instead of neutral feelings, you will have prompted negative feelings towards you.
Trust me – an email in this situation just doesn’t cut it.
Let’s remember the two minute rule. Take the number of items you have in your inbox and multiply that number by 2. That’s the maximum number of minutes this project should take you. Then, set aside uninterrupted time to start working on your inbox.
This practice is actually a great way to help you get acclimated to the new way you will handle your inbox. If you have a very large amount of items, it may be useful to break this project into a few different time slots. BUT… Don’t stop the project until your inbox is totally clear!
NO. NO. NO. That’s extra work. That will create another email to handle. If you want or need to save an item that you sent, go into your sent mail, as soon as it is sent, and do whatever you were going to do with that blind copied email.
This is another one that could be tough to give you rules to follow. Sometimes the received email is enough for you to save. Sometimes you may need to keep your response. Whatever you do, try not to keep both.
One of the questions I get ALOT is “How do I know when to use and not use email?”
One of the best ways to answer this question is to suggest two things:
1. Consider the overall time of the transaction
2. Consider the most effective way to make sure your message is completely understood.
The first one, considering the overall time of the transaction, helps us avoid annoying back and forth emails, or the “get it off my desk” syndrome. when you’re trying to decide whether to use email, how to use it, or who to include, think about how many responses or emails will result, how many people will have to read and respond, and how much overall time it will take you. As an example, a quick phone call might take 2 people 3 minutes, but if there are 5 back and forth emails over several days, the phone call is the most efficient.
The second relates to how well people can get your message when it is only words. 93% of communication is voice infelction and body language, leaving only 7% coming from the words themselves. I like to say “if there is a chance that an email message can be misinterpreted, it will be.” Email is not dialogue even though many try to make it so. When dialogue is needed, email is not. Email is best used for not emotional facts, and true information sharing.
We received this question from Chris Breslin. Thanks Chris!
Credit: Free photos from acobox.com
Check out our article, just posted on Fox Business “Generation Wired Goes To Work: 5 Tips for New Grads and ‘Old’ Bosses
Here’s an excerpt – you’ll have to go to the article for the 5 tips!
More than a million students graduate this month and are ready to enter the workforce. However, at a time when these former students willingly admit to being tangled in an endless web of distractions, employment could present their greatest challenge yet: staying focused for an eight-hour day.
While there is always some doom and gloom surrounding the work habits of the current stock of college grads, this year raises questions that may justify the concerns. How will graduates deal with digital distraction and information overload in the workplace? Will it be hard for a generation that grew up with the Internet to work for a generation that didn’t?
Read more…
What are YOUR suggestions for new grads and/or “old bosses”?
I have thousands and thousands of e-mails not only in my inbox, but in many folders….
It is difficult to give you rules on when you should purge your e-mails. But the first thing is to spend time getting all of those e-mails out of your inbox, and into action folders or into reference folders.
The second thing I suggest you do is to go into your folders, sort your mail by date, and start with the oldest, and just start purging. Another way to sort is to sort by those with attachments, because some attachments can be quite large, and can impact the performance of your system.
Another suggestion is to save the attachment on an e-mail to your hard drive, the first time you view it, and make sure that the e-mail references the path where the item is saved.
Finally, every time you are in a folder, take a quick look at what is “hanging” in the folder. You might be able to easily delete the out of date items in a few quick seconds.
You’ll enjoy this 2 minute ABC News Boston segment.
Reporter Kelley Tuthill has only 37,000 items in her inbox, and that’s only one of her many email accounts.
Click here to watch. The accompanying article ain’t bad either!
This solution comes under the heading of working to manage yourself even better. Sometimes we understand what we need to change, yet we have a hard time making the change. Making changes takes focus, and energy. If you focus on making this change, and practice it for 21 to 28 days, you will most likely be able to make this shift. You have got to believe that you can do it. This sounds simple, but it is not. But it is possible.
First, KUDOS! It is extremely important that you do have a high priority of not offending others. I think we have all been around reformed smokers or people who’ve lost a lot of weight, and how uncomfortable some of those discussions are for those who still smoke or still have pounds to lose. That being said, here are a few tips that might help:
- First, DON’T do it by email! If you do, you run the risk of misinterpretation.
- Bring it up in conversations, casually, and lunch, etc… When people know what your challenges or pet peeves are, sometimes they will work to honor them.
- At a team meeting, discuss your ideas on how to improve everyone’s productivity. Sell them on how it can help them!
- Add a tip of the week to your e-mail signature line.
- Print out and share Egan’s 10 E-mandments of a productive e-mail culture. Visit http://EganEmailSolutions.com/emandments.html
