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Spotlight on Productivity: How to Overcome E-Mail Overload

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Do you ever feel overwhelmed by e-mail? Have you ever spent more of your day wading through your e-mail than managing your work? Are you looking for ways to spend less time creating, managing and answering messages? Discover how to overcome e-mail overload and be more productive by writing more effective e-mail messages and reducing the volume of e-mail.

Write Effective E-Mail Messages

Start improving your e-mail effectiveness by creating and formatting easy to follow content, and by using pre-written responses.

Create Clear Content

Consider these strategies to upgrade your communications with understandable, e-mail messages:

• Help others prioritize how to act on your e-mail by including a clear, specific subject line and repeating important subject information in the body of the message.

• Define your expectations in the body of the message. Do you want your recipients to act, respond, read, or is the e-mail FYI only?

• Include only one topic per message. If that isn’t possible, then describe and number multiple topics as in 5 items to add to the Wednesday meeting agenda.

• When you type the addresses for your message, check who is getting your e-mail. Many programs attempt to auto-fill an e-mail address which may not be your intended recipient.

• Be careful with your tone and language. As with any other communication, match the message to your audience. Unless the reader understands your dry sense of humor, for instance, they may be confused or offended rather than amused.

• It may be tempting to use acronyms in the world of the Blackberry and IM (instant messaging), but only use extremely common abbreviations, such as FYI or ASAP, unless you are absolutely certain that the individual receiving your e-mail knows what they mean.

• Clearly identify yourself to strangers within your message and in the message signature.

Format Readable E-Mail Messages

Simplify the e-mail messages you send with clean, easy-to-read formatting:

• Get to the point. Shorten paragraphs to no more than five or six lines to reduce reading.

• Limit e-mail text to a single printed page. If you have more text, reduce the message or consider attaching a Word document. Delete previous responses that are no longer relevant to the current exchange.

• Use fonts between 10 and 12 points in size except for headlines and choose a font style that is easy to read. Apply colors sparingly.

• Add blank lines and white space to separate paragraphs and areas of detail.

• Run the spelling checker and re-read messages one last time for clarity and grammar before clicking Send.

Use Prewritten Responses

If you send a few basic messages over and over again, such as a reply to a request for product information, consider saving those responses as signatures that can be inserted into e-mail so that you don’t have to retype them. For a majority of messages, create a default signature that includes your full name, position or title, phone, website, and other contact information.

Reduce the Volume of E-Mail

Some of the top ways to cut the amount of e-mail you receive is to manage the number of messages that you send, reduce unnecessary follow-up replies, and determine when person-to-person communication is a better choice. Decrease the Number of Messages You Send Before you write your next e-mail, seek to actively reduce how much e-mail you send:

• Read all replies on a topic before responding to the original message. Resist getting involved with e-mail threads that don’t impact your objectives.

• Don’t send, and discourage your staff from sending, “chime-in” messages that are simply unimportant responses such as “Thank you” and “You’re welcome.” Don’t respond to junk mail.

• Avoid Reply to All unless all recipients need to see your response. Otherwise you are contributing to their e-mail litter.

• Use the Cc (carbon copy) line only when the topic impacts the recipient’s work. Although it may seem easier to send a message to everyone in a department or your organization, first ask yourself, “Who needs to know? Why?” Most people who get a carbon copy assume there is something they are supposed to do.

• Use Bcc (blind carbon copy) to hide large distribution lists or to disguise the names of select recipients. All recipients can respond to a message but replies will not be received by anyone in the Bcc list which reduces the amount of e-mail they get.

Eliminate the Clutter in Your E-Mail

In addition to initiating fewer e-mail messages, look at other ways to reduce the messages in your Inbox:

• Publish frequently requested information on your company website and make sure that the website is quickly updated when changes occur.

• When you are sending out informational messages that do not require feedback, discourage unnecessary responses by using formal language and begin and end messages with No Reply Needed or FYI Only.

• Unsubscribe to electronic newsletters that you don’t read and move others out of your Inbox to folders for reading during travel or other down times. Don’t unsubscribe to mailings that you never initiated or you may further open the flow of junk mail.

• If it’s an available option, setup an out of office message that responds to incoming messages when you are not available to answer your e-mail. Clearly state your response time, when you will return, and who can be contacted during your absence.

Choose Voice Instead of E-Mail

There are often times when phone or face-to-face conversations are a superior choice to e-mail. Pick up the phone or arrange a meeting when:

• Building rapport is critical.

• The topic is emotionally charged.

• There are many intertwined issues to resolve or there is a need for lengthy interactive discussions.

Implementing these strategies for overcoming e-mail overload can help you become more productive and free you from your Inbox.

Guest post written by Stuart Ngai, Director of Technology Solutions, VERAX

Having worked in software development in the engineering and financial sectors through several technology eras, one thing strikes me the most is how often top notch IT professionals just get burned out by the fast pace of technology advances. As an educator, development manager, and technology driver for many years, it has been my passion to help our IT staff to keep up in light of global competition. On the previous episode of the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk, I shared with the audience my advice on how IT managers can play an important role in their team’s training. I would like to summarize a few important aspects to keep in mind when it comes to planning and managing training for your staff.

Continued from last Monday. Read Part 1 >>

Enforce a checkpoint schedule

Now that you’ve worked out a set of goals with your staff. Who’s responsible to make sure things are on track? My experience tells me that it’s both of you: your staff needs to take ownership to keep up with skills and you, as their manager, need to be the measuring stick. And if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. So it needs to be instilled as a routine in order to keep the momentum going. By measuring training progress on a periodic basis like once every 3 to 4 months , you’ll know whether your staff is progressing as expected or perhaps he or she is being overloaded. With such a feedback loop, you’ll be able to fine tune the training plan and keep things in focus.

Not one size fits all

Everyone’s different. Some of your IT staff might be more comfortable with structured classroom learning while others prefer to be given time and web resources so they can learn at their own pace. And one of the techniques we have done successfully at VERAX is to provide some of the technology savvy staff with resources and allocated time so that they can put together lunch and learn seminars for their peers. And there are many benefits for that: opportunity to showcase what they’ve learned, efficiency in cross training each other, a chance for the team to gel and discuss innovative ideas for your workplace, and virtually no loss of productivity at a minimal cost to the company. It’s been a win-win training mechanism that has been working well for us. So be creative in your approach to training.

Make use of web resources

With advances in webcasting and e-learning tools, many companies are no longer constrained to sending their staff on expensive offsite training. Virtual training along with virtual machine images would be a great way to learn. And there are tons of resources on the web for that purpose that you should look into (some free resources - Developer Connection, Channel 9)

Make it fun

Be aware of e-learning trends and listen to your staff for innovative and fun ideas to learn. As an example, one thing we have done is to provide tablets to loan to our staff along with e-book subscriptions so that they can read at their own pace anywhere anytime. Our staff love such innovative approaches to learning and they appreciate our willingness to invest in them. So not only did we generated excitement and high level of staff engagement, we know our staff will be able to learn throughout the year on their own pace instead of the standard one to two weeks training for most companies. So make it fun and engaging. After all, it’s a small investment that pays back many folds.

To finish off - You are not alone

Just remember that you are not an island on your own. The best way to avoid missteps is to learn from the lessons and best practices of other managers. And guess what? There are already great resources freely available for you, such as the AlignIT portal and LinkedIn group. They are great places where you can read and interact with other IT practitioners for advice.

Stuart Ngai

Stuart Ngai, Director of Technology Solutions at VERAX, is an IT professional with over 25 years of experience. As a development manager, lead enterprise architect, and a Senior Leadership Member, Stuart has led the delivery of many leading edge systems through several technology eras and guided many IT professionals in enriching and re-energizing their careers. With 7 years teaching software courses at Seneca College of Applied Sciences followed by another 7 years teaching software engineering courses for the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto, personal development through perpetual training has been a theme in which Stuart helped many IT professionals to achieve and sustain their career growth. Stuart is a certified P. Eng. and PMP with a Masters degree in Engineering from McGill University and a management degree from McGill's School of Management. He has been with the software consulting firm VERAX Solutions Corporation in Toronto since 1993 focusing on building strong delivery teams and delivering results to their customers in the financial sector.

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