The reality of Most Email Inboxes
I received from Microsoft newsletters today a link to some tips and pointers on time management, inbox management. So, it got me thinking.
What’s astonishing to me over the years is many people believe that email requires an immediate response; in fact, there’s that silly expectation that all recipients read every email sent to them. Well, sorry to inform you folks, but if you think that your email is the most important thing in the world, you’re sadly mistaken. There’s nothing in there about world peace and curing all forms of cancer.
So, generally, if you think your email is that important and you want to recipient to think so or even read it.
- Don’t use the “receipt confirmation” – this is easily defeated as I always turn it off. To me that’s just more junk traversing the wires.
- Say what you want in the first sentence or paragraph. Then, fill the rest of the email with background and justification
- Keep it short – most people are too busy to read dissertations unless they’ve been hooked early on in the message. So, all of your writing is probably going in the trash anyway. Might make you feel good that you wrote it, but in the end most people don’t care. Sorry if that’s a ding to your ego, but hey, that’s humanity.
- If it’s really that important – PICK UP THE PHONE!!! Again, email is an asynchronous process with no Service Level Agreements attached. I can, upon receipt, ignore it, delete it, read it, laugh at it, or maybe I’m too busy on something else to actually look at email right now. Have we all lost the ability to use the phone?
4 Ways to Take Control of Your E-mail Inbox.
5 Beliefs that Limit Productivity - And How to Overcome Them.