4 glorious email rules that will rescue your sanity
TRANSCRIPT
4 Glorious Email Rules to Rescue Your
Sanity
Presented by
Email Overload 2015
Corporate workers are expected to
receive 22% more business emails
today than in 2014 and to send 24%. Email overusecauses stress, lower job satisfaction,
and decreased brain power.
Time-SensitiveEmails
ResponseDeadlines
After-HoursEmails
4 Email RulesBill Gates once said the first rule of using technology is that
when you automate an efficient activity, you magnify its efficiency—and when you automate an inefficient activity, you magnify its inefficiency. That’s especially true for email. When used efficiently, it’s a powerful productivity tool. When used
poorly, it’s a huge drain on your time and mental performance.
ResponseLength
Rule #1: If It Needs to Be Done Today, Don’t Email
When co-workers feel like they have to constantly monitor email for fear of missing something important,
the interruptions can cost them hours in lost productivity.
30 Min. 2 Hrs. LongerToday
Call Text IM Email
Cyrus Stoller’s Method for Selecting a Communication Tool
Rule #2: Always Include Clear Action Items
Because most email clients show messages based on when they were received, not how important they are,
our inboxes are horrible prioritization tools.
DON’T DO
Use a vague subject line— e.g. “A Few Things”—or use no subject line at all.
Hide what you need from the recipient in the body or end of the the email.
Forget to include clear action items.
Leave the response deadline up to the recipient.
Use the subject to say what the email is about—e.g. “Summary Report for Q3.”
Put the most important information at the start so it’s not glanced over.
Be specific about what you.
Tell the recipient if/when you need a reply, and whether you want an email, call or other form of response.
Rule #3: Send After-Hours Emails
When employees get in the habit of managing email during evenings and weekends, it exerts pressure on
everyone to remain available around the clock
When the Huffington Post asked readers about work habits, more than half said they spend less than two waking hours each day disconnected from email.
Adopt Vynamic’s “zmail” policy: No corporate emails from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
on weeknights and none at all on weekends and holidays.
The Problem
The Solution
Rule #4: Limit Response Length
If email replies regularly take longer to write than the initial sent email, there is time being wasted on
one, if not both, ends.
Designer Mike Davidson realized many of his emails took more time to reply to than they took for the sender to write.
In response, he made an email policy limiting responses to 5 sentences. He applies this practice to every email.
TIP: If it’s going to take more than 5 sentences for you or your recipient to reply, schedule a time to talk on the phone.
TIP: When writing an email with multiple topics, send each in a separate email. This will enable the recipient to prioritize tasks and respond in the order of importance, rather than feeling overwhelmed by the need to respond to everything at once.
Conclusion
Setting clear guidelines like these will help you clean up email habits that drain your
and your company's time. Once they become second nature, you just might pass
the Bill Gates efficiency test.
Take Back Your Company’s Email Culture Today
