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Managing Emails Effectively

Email is a great communication tool, but it is also one of the greatest challenges to business today. Many millions of hours are spent everyday in the UK by workers sifting through, answering and sending electronic messages. Across the working week many hours will be wasted on inefficient communications.

Just think, if each of your employees receives 50 emails a day and if they spend 2 or 3 minutes on each, every person will have spent a couple of hours on emails before they have even started work!

Part of the problem is that email makes it easy for anyone to quickly send a missive. . A few simple taps on the keyboard and a message has been sent, not just to one person but potentially to many more.
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However, if should be recognised that email is just one of a number of communication tools that an organisation uses, and the same rules should be applied to managing emails as they are for any other means of communication. For example, how many managers would let ten people barge into their office to pass on their personal views on a recent reorganisation? Not many.

The following are some hints and tips that if adopted will help you and your organisation to manage emails more efficiently.

1. Probably the most useful tip is to deal with emails in a proactive rather than a reactive manner. Turn off the sound, bleep or other device that notifies you of an incoming email. Email notifications interrupt what you are doing; you subsequently become distracted by looking at the email and dealing with it. You then spend a few minutes getting your mind to focus again on what you were previously doing.

Establish the habit of looking at your emails at specific times in the day, for example when you first start, and then every 2 hours and then just before you leave. Disciplining yourself in this way will make a massive change to the way you manage both emails and your time.

2. Keep focussed. When you process emails don't spend more than a minute or two on an each - and don't start down the road of firing off two or three emails for every one you receive, or diving into doing a task, (ah – I promised to get back to John with a revised budget). Put the task on your To Do list, and keep processing your inbox. By dealing with your emails in this way, you will be far more efficient.

3. Remember that how you communicate with other people via email will dictate how they will communicate to you. If you tend to communicate mainly via email, don’t be surprised if others communicate to you via email. The number of emails you receive will be in proportion to the number you send. Therefore go back to using traditional forms of communication - either face to face or via the telephone, and others will respond accordingly.

4. Don’t be tempted to respond to emails immediately (see point 1). If you reply immediately to an email, and others notice it, then they will expect an immediate response in the future. This turns into a vicious circle of ‘immediate responses’. Manage peoples expectations – they will soon get used to you replying within a few hours (see point 1 above).

5. Avoid email ‘discussions’ - get the people you need together and talk it through (via teleconference if necessary).

6. Don’t copy others on emails ‘for information only’ and let other people know that you don’t appreciate them doing the same.

7. When receiving emails scan the headings to check for recognisable mail. Ask yourself: What does this email mean to me and why do I need to look at it? What action (if any) does this message require of me?

8. Never read any bulk (or spam) mail however enticing the subject heading may be. Be ruthless and delete them immediately.

9. Organise your emails logically and remember that your Inbox is your Inbox; it should not be your To Do list. Never leave an email in your inbox and always take action (in the time you have set aside for emails). In other words you should respond to the email straight away, archive it for reference only or turn into an action on your action list.

10. Don't use your email as a filing system, and for don't rescue a colleague who is looking for something you happen to have tucked away in an email folder. If someone else owns a document/plan/conversation, let them store it.

At the end of the day it should be remembered that the person who has most control over your emails is you. You should be the one who decides when to look at and action your emails - don’t allow this control to be with the people who send them!.