Having the ability to shoot off an email at any time of day or night and knowing that it will appear in the recipient’s inbox almost instantaneously, regardless of where they may be located (next door or thousands of kilometers away)  has most certainly done wonders for modern business communication. However, email can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing.

 Let me illustrate this for you by asking you a couple of questions:

• How many emails do you find in your inbox each morning?

• How many of those emails are urgent….important…..or even necessary?

• On how many of them were you cc’d? Was that urgent……important….or even necessary?

• How many emails await you after each weekend?

• How many emails clog up your inbox after a holiday? 

If you are like most people in today’s corporations you’ll most likely be spending anywhere from a quarter to a third of your working day taking care of your never-ending stream of email traffic. A recent study revealed that 7 out of 10 managers feel extremely stressed as they observe their inbox filling up and feel pressure to immediately respond to messages. As you can imagine, constantly checking your inbox and instantly replying to whatever comes your way is not only terribly distracting but also counterproductive.  

Following are some tips designed to tame the email monster: 

*     Only check your email 2 or 3 times per day. It’s generally necessary to do so first thing in the morning. It can also be important that you check it after lunch and again a ½ hour (or so) before leaving your office. This ensures that you can take care of those emails that require an instant reply before you leave for the day.

*    Use whatever function your email program allows – you may be able to set to automatically sort, file and delete appropriate emails.

*    Ensure that your subject lines are detailed and clear. This makes filing (and, even more importantly) retrieving emails at a later stage, much easier. 

*    Indicate in your subject line whether your email requires a response, or not.

*    Set your email function to alert you with a special sound when you receive an email that contains the word “urgent” in the subject line.

*    Don’t copy people in on any email unless they really need to be informed of its contents! Confine yourself to only sending emails that are essential.

*    Don’t reply immediately to emails that don’t require an instant reply.

*    Ensure that you clear out your inbox completely at least once weekly to avoid email build-up stress.

*     Give yourself permission to be old-fashioned every so often. Walk to the office that’s next to yours and talk with its occupant face-to-face. Making an occasional phone call rather than doing the email thing can sometimes also be a great time saver and, above all, make your communication more personal.   

@ S. Ridden (2006)