2000 emails
Each half-year, I write 2000 emails. This makes 20 per work day. Isn´t this crazy? No, I am no call center agent, I am a knowledge worker. Team work creates such an amount of communication. I apply some Best Practices for reducing the amount of emails written:
- ask less questions: Sometimes, it is attractive to just ask a stupid question in order to get the email and topic out of my mail box and send the ball of action to someone else. Until he answers my stupid question, I do not need to do anything about this topic. But, of course, the ball will return in the form of an answer. And this will force me to act anyway. Why not spare the world useless questions and just decide myself? Many people are not so fond on answering questions and making decisions, so my stupid question just creates work and stress on the other side.
- clear responsibilities: Sometimes, you do not mind who out of three persons answers your question. All you need is an answer. The problem is that the more people you send the question to, the less they will feel responsible for answering. Why me? Someone else will answer... If you want to triple the probability that you get an answer, then you must write to three persons individually, not by the same email.
- Tracking: 50% of all questions and tasks I send out by email go to the abyss. Some people´s inboxes are black holes where messages disappear. So, you can not trust that if you have asked a question, that you get an answer. Therefore, I track when I sent which question where and do not hesitate to repeat my email two weeks later. It is even better to contact the other on another medium like phone or just popping in his office or being in the kitchen at the same time.
- do not talk about others: If you have something to say to or about someone, do not create complex forward chains. When Alice asks you who has the book about X, and you believe that it is Bob, then do not do this: ask Bob, wait for his reply to forward it to Alice. Instead, tell Bob that Alice wants to know it, send Bob her email address and tell him to answer to her directly.
- answer emails within 24 hours: In one company where I worked, we had the order to answer each email within 24 hours. Such an answer can also be an out-of-office reply or the information that I will answer next week because I am currently on a training or because I must ask Bob and he is on vacation.
- keep promises: When you do not keep to the promises you made, you need not wonder that you get avoidable emails - in the worst case going to your boss per cc. (No good style, but more painful for you than for its author.)
- no preliminary information: Do not send intermediate versions of documents or preliminary information, except for very rare cases where someone is very eager on receiving information fast, even if it is preliminary. Do not send a new version of the same document every 6 hours to everyone. Because then, people will not read any of them, they just can not distinguish between main releases and mini changes.
- ask less questions: Sometimes, it is attractive to just ask a stupid question in order to get the email and topic out of my mail box and send the ball of action to someone else. Until he answers my stupid question, I do not need to do anything about this topic. But, of course, the ball will return in the form of an answer. And this will force me to act anyway. Why not spare the world useless questions and just decide myself? Many people are not so fond on answering questions and making decisions, so my stupid question just creates work and stress on the other side.
- clear responsibilities: Sometimes, you do not mind who out of three persons answers your question. All you need is an answer. The problem is that the more people you send the question to, the less they will feel responsible for answering. Why me? Someone else will answer... If you want to triple the probability that you get an answer, then you must write to three persons individually, not by the same email.
- Tracking: 50% of all questions and tasks I send out by email go to the abyss. Some people´s inboxes are black holes where messages disappear. So, you can not trust that if you have asked a question, that you get an answer. Therefore, I track when I sent which question where and do not hesitate to repeat my email two weeks later. It is even better to contact the other on another medium like phone or just popping in his office or being in the kitchen at the same time.
- do not talk about others: If you have something to say to or about someone, do not create complex forward chains. When Alice asks you who has the book about X, and you believe that it is Bob, then do not do this: ask Bob, wait for his reply to forward it to Alice. Instead, tell Bob that Alice wants to know it, send Bob her email address and tell him to answer to her directly.
- answer emails within 24 hours: In one company where I worked, we had the order to answer each email within 24 hours. Such an answer can also be an out-of-office reply or the information that I will answer next week because I am currently on a training or because I must ask Bob and he is on vacation.
- keep promises: When you do not keep to the promises you made, you need not wonder that you get avoidable emails - in the worst case going to your boss per cc. (No good style, but more painful for you than for its author.)
- no preliminary information: Do not send intermediate versions of documents or preliminary information, except for very rare cases where someone is very eager on receiving information fast, even if it is preliminary. Do not send a new version of the same document every 6 hours to everyone. Because then, people will not read any of them, they just can not distinguish between main releases and mini changes.
AndreaHerrmann - 28. Okt, 22:26
