Boosting Email Productivity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re like most, you struggle to keep up with the dearth of email that arrives in your inbox daily.  I’ve seen inboxes with literally hundreds of unread or not responded to mail silently calling for attention.  Here are some simple suggestions for reducing the problem and increasing your email productivity.

Use Fewer Words

Learn to effectively convey a key message while using fewer words.  (This one continues to be a challenge for me!  But, I’m working on it.)

 

Improve The Quality Of Subject Line

Almost any team, division or organization will benefit from investing a short bit of time to agree on some basic rules for handling email communications.  The best place to start is with the use of subject lines.  Agree to take responsibility for making your subject line more meaningful.  Replace “Re: new product” with “New product approval required for Thursday.”

 

Keep in mind that the primary reasons why most people don’t open and act on emails efficiently are: a) they don’t think they are valuable/have relevance and b) they’re afraid of what they might find inside that will add to their workload.

 

Consequently, the subject line carries the greatest impact on whether or not we open the mail and follow-through.  If you care to test my theory, check your inbox over the next couple of days and monitor the impact of your mail’s subject lines as a motivating factor for you.

 

Establish Protocols

Agree upon a set of short codes to use in subject lines that will alert the recipient as to what is expected of them.  Once we see what the impact of the message is going to be, we are in a better position to plan and respond accordingly.  Here are three “code” suggestions:

1. Where possible, attempt to convey the entire message in less than 60 characters.  If this can be done, put the whole message in the subject line and close it off with an [EOM].  That way the recipient is less likely to ignore it and appreciate the second or two savings of time to open it.
    
   Although this may seem like an insignificant amount of time, it adds up over the hundreds and thousands of emails received and delivered over many months and years.  Furthermore, Blackberry users will love you.
    
   An example of such a subject line is:  “Planning meeting rescheduled for 10am, Apr 16 in Boardroom [EOM].  Now isn’t that much better than the usual “Re: Planning Meeting” … Body: “The planning meeting previously scheduled for 9:00 am on Monday, April 16^th, has been postponed until 10:00 a.m., same day.  We will be meeting in the Boardroom.”
   
   No need to even open the first option and less time consumed to read.  Yeahh
   
   
2. Replace FYI with [NRR].  Here, you agree to drop the standard ‘FYI’ and replace with ‘NRR’ (no reply required).  ‘FYI’ often leaves the recipient feeling they need to comment or acknowledge receipt in some fashion or another.  The ‘NRR’ makes it clear that no reply is needed.
   
   Once I know that I’m not going to have to respond, I’m more likely to read the mail and be done with it rather than not read it at all or save it for ‘sometime’ when I have time, which usually amounts to never. 
   
   In this case, your subject line will read like this:  “Background document attached for planning meeting, Apr 16  [NRR].  If you wish, you can even shorten this to “Bckgrnd doc att’d for planning mtg [NRR]
   
   
3. Use [Y/N] for quick, straight-forward decisions.  If you just need to know if they are available at 10 am rather than 9 am, get straight to the point by a subject line that reads, “Can you delay planning mtg, Apr 16 to 10am [Y/N].”  This can also be, “Can u meet at 10am 4 Apr 16 planning mtg? [Y/N].

 

If you found these tips to be helpful, and you would like to receive three more, send me an email and I’ll be happy to forward them to you.  In the meantime, I’m working at keeping your reading to a minimum…..