Smart Email
From Management and Teams
A highly effective time-saving way to manage your email.
Open your Inbox.
Decide within 10 seconds what needs to be done with the first email.
Use the Delete, Delegate, Deal with, Decision approach for quickly getting through large amounts of email, especially if done in a scheduled, fixed block of time. (Timeboxing it, for example, is the best method).
Next decide Where to file it (if not deleting it), When to come back to it (to carry out the task it contains) or Wait (for when you're waiting on someone) and Move it to a waitlist folder with a reminder if you like.
Next email, decide within 10 seconds……
If you open the same email more than once, that's wasteful and consumes a lot of time
Things that may appeal to you
The best strategy is to control ‘when’ you check your email, not allowing it as an interruption, only significant matters should require your immediate attention. Try email timeboxing three times a day.
Stop replying to them. Seriously, this works; answer only the important ones. Once staff understand that you will not automatically respond to every email, they will either come and see you or call you if it’s that important.
Include a note in your signature to let people know you may not reply today. (I use a note that says I may not read/reply for 48 hours).
How to address the problem of preserving business memory contained in emails. (Create a Folder for these and delegate them out).
Use email as fast chat: - try restricting messages and replies to the subject line only.
Send back a message that says “Why did you send this?”
Consider flagging the email and holding it over until a Weekly Management Team or staff meeting or until you see the sender.
If people are sending lots of emails and copying others, they are spreading their responsibilities or worse, their accountabilities which is a serious issue. Or, you don’t have clear Roles and Responsibilities defined for everyone that says who owns what. Clearly defined Roles and Responsibilities for each team member stops email copies dead in their tracks significantly reducing email traffic.
A method of evaluating your team members performance is how often and why they are emailing you. Are they not accountable and empowered?
There is no rule that says you must answer an email immediately or at all.
“One CEO on this topic told her staff not to send emails requiring her to make a decision about something - in order to make a decision she would probably need to ask clarifying questions leading to even more messages in her Inbox. She told her staff to ring her or make an appointment to see her instead.” The Age Newspaper.