The latest addition to my writing credits is with the St Croix Courier right here in Charlotte County New Brunswick. I have been asked to share some business organizing tips and here is the June 22nd article….enjoy!
Do you remember the first time you used e-mail? It was probably around 1996 and the thought was that e-mail would replace paper. Here we are 14 years later and we still have lots of paper and a monster some people call e-mail.
The e-mail issue started so innocently. Everyone got an address where mail could be sent and retrieved instantly…how efficient, especially for business. This new system of mail was going to save valuable time and money. However, we were not given a how-to manual with this shiny new system. Over the past several years this has become a monster that consumes our time and has added a financial burden to the companies that have to store and manage all of that saved virtual information. 
Industry analysts at IDC estimate that 60% of business-critical information is stored within corporate messaging systems, up from 33% in 1999. All of this is a bottom line expense for business.
If used properly e-mail is an effective, inexpensive, time saving way to communicate. However, much like paper clutter, e-mail clutter can paralyze any office if not dealt with properly. Use e-mail for its intended purpose, as a form of communication, and spend your valuable time working on your business not tied to your e-mail.
Here are some strategies for receiving e-mail effectively:
- Check your e-mail at specific times of the day and let people know what your policies are for answering e-mail. Communicate what you want.
- Respond to e-mail the next day. This gives you a closed list where you know how many e-mails you have to deal with.
- Turn off the annoying e-mail alerts…this is so distracting.
- Clear out the old e-mail clutter by sorting by subject line and sender and delete old mail…be honest why are you keeping e-mails in your in box that are older than 6 months.
- Any e-mail worth saving needs to be filed in an appropriate folder or document for retrieval at a later date.
- Use folders for current projects
- Set up alerts and rules to filter unimportant or unwanted e-mails to your junk box
- Refrain from printing e-mails, save to documents.
- Last thoughts…Read, Respond and then file it.
As a sender of e-mails here are some things to ponder before you hit the send button;
- Do other people need to know this information or am I sharing just because?
- Does my subject line summarize what the e-mail is about?
- Did you start the e-mail with the meat and not the potatoes?
- Do you have separate messages in separate e-mails? It makes communication on specific subjects easier to find.
- Be specific in your e-mail, if you want the receiver to do something, be clear.
- Would you let your grandmother read the e-mail or your boss or client? If not don’t send it.
At the end of the day, if you want to stop receiving too many e-mails then stop sending too many. If what you have to share is that important, make a call or book an appointment and communicate old school style. If it is not that important then send the e-mail and be patient with the response.