Managing Email

Managing Email

Below are tips from Mike Song the author of The Hamster Revolution. 

This is a great book about managing email.  Read my article and implement some of the book's suggestions today.

We love our email and we hate our email.  I definitely fall into this category.  Sometimes, I feel anxiety flowing in as my in box fills up.  Here are some tips that can help us all get a handle on our email.  Let me know if you would like assistance implementing these tips. 

Ttips:   

• Email from associations (you want to keep it but you don't want to read it NOW and you want to be able to find it) Right click (Microsoft Outlook) or Check box and press more above (Gmail) and create a rule that any email from (associations you belong to).  I have one for NAPO (Natl. Assoc. of Prof. Organizers) will automatically go into my NAPO folder.  Create a folder if one does not exist.
• Email - Tag Your It:  When trying to set up a date for a mini-meeting with someone be sure to give 3 options.  This helps prevent voice mail or phone tag.
• Pick up the phone and call.  We rely on email too much.  Sometimes it is more appropriate and productive to pick up the phone and call.
• Touch It Once:  When you are going through your email try to touch it once.
• Delete
• Move to a Folder
• Make note of important information
• Print only if necessary
• Delete Aggressively
• Schedule time to work on email.  
• Have a goal as to how many emails you want to keep in your in box.  Song, recommends no more than 50.
• Use acronyms at the end of an email like EOM - End of Message or NRN - No reply needed.  Make sure the person receiving this understands it.    
• Reply All - Don't reply all unless it is absolutely necessary.
• Highlight an email and press F12 - boom you’re in my documents.  Save emails in my documents.  You can save attachments directly into your documents.
• Strengthen the subject line of your emails
• Change the subject line when your original email becomes a thread of emails that no longer pertain to the original subject
•  Be specific when answering an email.  If you answer, I'm all over it.  The person may think you’re all over what?  I will take care of a, b, and c is a better way to reply.

Adele Tusson-Gross

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