Email Hack... the good kind.

We all get a ton of emails every day.  Friends, family, customers, co-workers, vendors, e-marketers, SPAM, etc.  Email has become the most used and relied on form of communication.  And, everyone that sends an email expects that the person they sent it to received it and read it immediately.  Unfortunately email is an imperfect tool.  Emails can get caught in SPAM filters, the receiving person can be busy and not checking their emails, there can be multiple recipients and it can be unclear who is being asked to do what. Or, an email can just get lost in an unruly inbox. We truly have a love/hate relationship with it.

I was recently reminded of a situation that happened a while ago. I was CC'ed on an email from a tutor we use for my son that was sent to my wife.  The tutor said that she had sent multiple invoices to her, had not received payment in a couple of months, and was wondering if the email invoice was caught in a SPAM filter or if she should send the invoice via snail mail.  

This was not a SPAM problem.  My wife had over 65,000 UNREAD emails in her inbox.  The total email in her inbox was over 750,000!  It’s no wonder the invoice wasn’t paid….she never saw it!  It got lost in her inbox!  I, on the other hand, manage my inbox to zero emails. I saw the tutor’s email, sent a check to her, and responded to her within 10 minutes – she called me an email ninja!

So, how many emails are in your inbox?  Here are some quick fixes to help you manage the unmanageable:

  1. State your expectations clearly.  What you need, when you need it by, and who you need it from (this is especially important when there are multiple recipients on the email).  Highlighting, underlining and bolding are great tools to use to draw attention to these details or to different people you need things from in a single email.

  2. Make sure to use the TO: and CC: fields properly.  TO: is used for someone that you need a response or action from.  CC: is for someone you just want to receive and be in the loop on the information.  Please don’t put someone in the CC: field if you need them to do something – it just creates confusion.

  3. Help minimize email overload.  Not only is it important to make sure to include everyone that needs to be in the know on an email, but it its equally important to know when not to. And STOP RELPYING TO ALL. I’ll say this again. Don’t reply to all when the answer is just for the person that sent it.

  4. Touch emails in your inbox only once. When I read an email inbox, I do one of a couple things that all end with the email being removed from my inbox. If it requires an action of me, I either act on it immediately and then archive or delete it, or move it to a folder to act on later. If no action is needed, I read it and then archive or delete it.

  5. Get organized. I have a simple folder structure - ATTENTION, HOLD, and ARCHIVE. Attention is for emails I cannot act on now but need to take an action on. Hold if for items I need to quickly reference or want to read later or am waiting for a follow up from other on. Archive is for anything else I want to save and not delete (the search functions are so good that I don’t create topic-centric folders to save emails).

  6. Rules, rules, rules. I love inbox rules. I can move items that I am CC:’d on or newsletters I get to my HOLD folder to read at my leisure. I can color code emails from certain people to make them stand out.

  7. If you have to follow up, flag it! Outlook and other email clients have features that allow you to flag an email for follow up. Some, like outlook, even let you turn the email into a task and set a due date.

“I get mail; therefore I am.” - Scott Adams (cartoonist, creator of Dilbert)

“How to write a good email: 1. Write your email. 2. Delete most of it. 3. Send.” - Dan Munz

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