Nearly every attendee was complaining about how much email they had; they said it wasted their time and bogged them down from getting the more important tasks accomplished.  This is all true, which is why we must learn to manage our email to more effectively.

A question that came up was what to do with all the “Thank You” emails you receive.  You know the situation, it happens many times each day, when you send something to someone and they respond just to say “Thank You.”   Or even worse, when you send a group email (which should be avoided at all costs) and everyone responds to say “Thank You.”  These are very common after an event of some kind, like a holiday party.  Everyone agreed the emails were polite, but completely unnecessary and just adds to their already full inbox. 

I shared with them two tools you can use to reduce the amount of “Thank You” emails you receive.  You can implement this yourself and with your clients.  Of course, this may take some training and you will want to let your recipients know how these tools work so you all can use them properly. 

• NRN = No Response Necessary:  Place these words or this acronym at the bottom of your email, near your name or closing.  It implies, the person only has to read the email, but does not have to respond. 
• NTN = No Thanks Necessary:  Place these words or this acronym at the bottom of your email, near your name or closing.  It lets the recipient know you do not expect a return or thank you email. 

Email has the potential to be a great tool, but with its overuse and abuse, its more of an annoyance than anything else.  We need to train each other how to use email effectively so we can start to use this tool in a more productive manner.

If you would like more information on Email Management listen and learn how to manage you inbox.  Purchase our A Red Bench Teleclass called Detox Your Inbox.   A Red Bench provides training to professional organizers.

• 50 emails a day
• Times 4 minutes typing up a response
• That over 3 hours each day to email.  (And 50 is quite conservative.) 
• Factor that number into 5 days a week 
• Times 50 work weeks a year = over 866 hours spent on email. 
• That’s almost 22 weeks dedicating totally lost to email!  Holy cow! 

Can you see where all your time is going?  A Red Bench, recently had a fantastic teleclass with fellow organizer and email expert, Lauren Halagarda,   It was called Detox Your Inbox and one of the questions was how much time should we really be spending with email.   Using Lauren’s process she shared on the teleclass she said you can process about 60 emails in 20 minutes.  I was blown away by that.  How long do you think it’s taking you to process 60 emails?

Here are some suggestions both from the Teleclass and some of my own practices that have become very helpful. 

• Process email twice a day or in micro bursts rather than in real time
• Shut off email arrival sounds and the “new mail”
• Use your calendar and tasks features
• Send fewer emails
• Send better emails

Think of your own clients who could benefit from using email more effectively. How can you incorporate this into your services and make a huge difference for your clients.  To purchase Detox Your Inbox, visit the Audio Recordings page of our website and consider attending a future A Red Bench Teleclass. 

She says “saving email is only helpful if you can find the email and the folders become overwhelming and confusing.”  Lauren recommends after processing your email, and she provides a process to do so on the teleclass, to archive emails in one folder.  Then use search sofware to retrieve information quickly.  She reviewed various search software tools on the call including her preferred software recommendation.   

Now, I know for many of you this may be a big change and seem like and odd recommendation.  I know for myself, I do like having a personal folder, a folder for my organizing company and one for A Red Bench.  I can still use the search tool she recommends making retrieval easy. But as I was listening to her I started thinking about a recent client who is an attorney and has to save every client communication.  Having one folder will help her tremendously, because right now she cannot stay on top of archiving them and the volume does not allow her to find anything. 

Think of your own clients where this one folder recommendation, along with a search tool, could save them time and frustration. To purchase Detox Your Inbox, visit the Audio Recordings page of our website and consider attending a future A Red Bench Teleclass.

Anyway, in my opinion sloppy emailing is more than sloppy grammar.  If you are texting with a close friend, or even emailing a close friend, sure you can skip the grammar check.  But if you are in the work environment, be sure to spell and grammar check prior to sending.   I think that goes without saying so I am not going to even bother including that in my email rules to avoid sloppy emailing:

Use Descriptive Subject Line:  Your subject line can tell your reader how important the email is and the the context of the email. 

• Be clear and concise
• Be to the point
• Be descriptive
• Be informative
• Be specific
• Foreshadow the content to follow
• Avoid clever or cute headings

A great subject line is “Action:  Please submit your marketing plan to be my 5pm 5/15.

Skip The Long Paragraph Of Text:  I don’t know about you, but if an email is over a few lines I stop reading and therefore I am missing a lot of information.  Instead of a lot of text use short bullet points and indicate where actions are necessary with bold words like “Your action required.”

Limit Use Of Reply All:  I personally just wish this button would go away altogether, but since that is not likely we have to work together on this.  Before you hit that reply all button ask yourself if everyone really needs to know your thoughts, ideas or opinons.  For every email we send, we receive three in return.  If you send off an email to 20 people, think about how many emails that is in your inbox.   If you do have to send an email to a group, blind copy (BCC) everyone so reply all is not an option, or consider including verbiage: To save time, please reply only to me rather than hitting “Reply All”.

Use Email Lingo:   Again, no one has taught us to use email; we are doing the best we can.  Like I said at a seminar last week, we need to learn to manage email because right now its managing us.   Consider using email lingo like ‘No Reply Needed’ – added this to subject line – shorten to NRN
‘No Thanks Needed’ – same as above (NTN).   Using this lingo let’s people know you do not expect a response and will have less in your inbox. 

Email can be a great tool, but we have to learn to use it effectively and this is an opportunity for organizers – to teach our clients how to use email effectively.  Don’t be a sloppy emailer; use my suggestions and spend less time in front of that computer screen.

Email abuse has become a bit of a focus for me.  You may also consider reading One Step To Reducing Email Overload or consider attending our upcoming business business teleclass called Detox Your Inbox.  

So I have been conducting a little experiment.  In an effort to reduce the amount of emails in my inbox, I have been trying to reduce the amount of emails I send.   I read somewhere for every one email you send, you receive three back.  And if you receive 100 emails each day and each takes 3 minutes to deal with, that’s five hours of your day.  No wonder we can’t get anything done!   So I send much less and am very aware of who I am sending to.  I only respond if I must and delete aggressively.  My goal by the end of the day in Zero Inbox, but usually I have around 10.   

What I can tell you is it has be fantastic not to have that panic feeling of all the emails I have to read and deal with in my inbox.   Just like everything else, you have to pick and choose; I choose to only respond to the most necessary, important emails.  We are looking forward to much more information on this Email Overload on our July 8th Teleclass with Lauren Halagarda.  Topic is DeTox Your Inbox.  Register today!