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Top tips from Mesmo Consultancy (and Associates) on how to save time and improve business and personal performance by ‘Taking Control of your Inbox’ and using proper business email etiquette.
Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times. Niccolo Machiavelli
By changing your email behaviour during the week, hopefully you have reduced the email overload, have a clean inbox . In addition you should have saved time. In the long term this will allow you to continue to reduce the email related stress and improved your productivity and well-being.
Now the trick is to keep a clean inbox and keep it under control. This means nudging and encouraging others to change their email behaviour.
Email addiction is one of the major causes of email overload. It’s the feeling that you must constantly check your inbox no matter where you are, what you are doing or what the time of day. Moreover, we often default to email when of course there are a myriad of other ways to communicate. Try Mesmo Consultancy’s PNDP framework to help you choose when an alternative niche be more effective such as WhatsApp, IM, etc.
Day five is about taking stock, checking you are not suffering from email addiction and making plans to keep your inbox out of the email overload zone. Here is our three step plan for the last day.
Use Mesmo Consultancy’s free Email Addiction self-assessment tool. Identify your strengths and weaknesses and if necessary seek advice about how to control the urge to have another email fix.
In the coming days and weeks as you are about either to Reply/Forward or even ‘Send’ pause and ask yourself would an alternative be more efficient (eg talking, a discussion group on something like SharePoint, instant message etc)?
Look back to Day 1 and how much time you were losing. Now re-calibrate using our Cost of Email Misuse Calculator. Where do you still need to make some changes?
How will you keep your inbox slim and control the email overload in the coming weeks? Don’t let email rule your day. Don’t feel you must check your email either first thing in the morning or every five minutes. Rather try to disconnect from time to time. The most productive people are those who prioritise their time and stay focused on the task in hand.
Do you have colleagues who would benefit from managing their email more effectively as you have now done? Yes, then call us now to ask about our Smart Email Management master classes. Otherwise how about giving them a copy of either ‘Brilliant Email’ or ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox’?
Share your progress; Email; Facebook: Twitter (using #cleaninbox) There is a prize (a copy of ‘Brilliant Email‘) for the person who has made the most outstanding progress. For instance, had five days of empty inboxes, reduced the number of rounds of email ping-pong by improving their email etiquette etc.
Follow me on Twitter using #cleaninbox.
Join our Facebook page.
Thank you for joining us for this the 10th International Clean Out Your Inbox Week. Feedback on how we can improve this event for next year is always appreciated.
Tags: Business email overload, clean out your inbox week, email addiction, Email behaviour
I can feel the twinkle of his eyes in his handshake. Helen Keller
Good business email etiquette is one of the quickest ways to stop email overload. Proper business email etiquette enables you to convey the right message, right first time. This reduces the chance of a misunderstanding and hence email war and endless rounds of email ping-pong. will help. You have less than five seconds before the recipient has formed an opinion of you for better or worse. Poor email etiquette can damage your reputation in a nanosecond. Proper business email etiquette grabs their attention substantially increases the likely-hood of a timely response.
Based on using brilliant email etiquette, here are today’s four steps to reduce even further the level of email overload and hence keep the inbox clean and empty.
Use our special free email Business Etiquette Check List to benchmark your email etiquette. Where and how can you improve?
Are there any email chains which could have been prevented if you had either communicated more clearly or planned ahead? What lessons can you learn from these?
Ask yourself, what image am I conveying of myself? How clear and concise is my email based in the checklist at Step 1.
Did you include an adequate greeting and closure to entice the recipient to respond properly? For more tips on how email etiquette can help you achieve an empty inbox and reduce email overload see Brilliant Email chapter 12 and ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox‘ chapter 11.
Be bold. If you receive an email you cannot understand on the first reading, ask the sender what they are trying to say. Send them a link to our Email Etiquette Checklist.
Share your progress; Email; Facebook: Twitter (using #cleaninbox) There is a prize for the person who has used email etiquette most effectively (a copy of ‘Brilliant Email‘).
Invest in a copy of either ‘Brilliant Email’ or for ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox’ (written especially for PAs, EAs and VAs).
Tomorrow we look at how to reduce the volume of email traffic through your inbox.
Share your progress; Email; Facebook: Twitter (using #cleaninbox) There is prize for the person with the best way of keeping track of emails on which you defer action (copy of ‘Brilliant Email’ or ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox’).
Follow me on Twitter using #cleaninbox.
Join our Facebook page.
Tags: business email etiquette, Business email overload, Clean Inbox Week
Develop an uncanny ability to be selectively ignorant. Timothy Ferriss.
Stressed by business email overload? What is the effect of email overload on your mental health? Studies show its profound. During day three of clean inbox week, we use email management techniques to reduce the the business email overload so that and you continue to enjoy a clean inbox. Deleting simply is not an option. You have be proactive and keep all unwanted emails out of your inbox and reduce the number of times you check for new email.
How many of the emails you receive do you really need? Triage your emails as you deal with them. Ask yourself ‘Do I really need this email?’ ‘How useful is this to me?’ For more guidance on prioritising see Brilliant Email chapter 3 and ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox” if you are a PA or EA.
For all those low priority emails, either get yourself off the sender’s list or automatically move them out of your inbox so they don’t distract you from the really important ones. Your inbox should be your ‘work in hand’ just like an old fashioned in-tray. Ways to reduce the incoming email traffic and hence email overload are:
Click here to see how to write rules that allow you see only the important emails (and not waste time on email distractions dealing with the lower priority ones).
How often do you currently check for new emails? When was the last time you received an email which would mean a catastrophe if you did not respond for about an hour? Give yourself a break from the inbox to allow yourself to focus on the task in-hand for at least 30 minutes and preferably one hour. Try not deal with your email too late into the night as that can seriously effect your quality of sleep and your work-life balance.
Share your progress; Email; Facebook: Twitter (using #cleaninbox) There are two prizes today. One for the person who has made the best progress reducing the number of times they check their email and one for the person who has reduced the volume of email they receive most substantially (a copy of ‘Brilliant Email‘ and ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox’ written especially for PAs, EAs and VAs).
Follow me on Twitter using #cleaninbox.
Join our Facebook page.
Do you feel others colleagues would benefit from help cleaning out their inboxes? Why not either join them up to this week’s programme or ask MesmoConsultancy to run one of our Brilliant Email Management master classes?
Tags: Business email management, clean out your inbox week, Email and stress, Email overload and mental health, Reduce business email overload
There is a huge stress (associated) with disorganisation and there is also a cost to being disorganised. Carolee Cannata
The real work of reducing email overload starts today. Having cleared out all the old emails, the goal is keep the inbox clean. Develop the habit of handling each email once and only once.
Use the Ds principle as you open each email:
Deal; Delegate; Delete or Defer.
Never, never open an email and then close it without taking action. This just wastes time as you then go back and forth re-reading emails.
Develop a process for you for making sure you keep tabs on those emails which still need action. For example, create a task, add a flag, move them to a ‘Pending’ folder. What ever happens don’t just leave them lying around in your inbox.
Invest in a copy of either ‘Brilliant Email’ or for ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox’ (written especially for PAs, EAs and VAs).
Do you still have colleagues who need convincing about why they should invest in better email management? Watch this video.
Tomorrow we look at how to reduce the volume of email traffic through your inbox.
Tags: Business email management, Business email overload, clean out your inbox week
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. Peter Drucker
Clean Out Your Inbox Week 2019
Clean Out Your Inbox Inbox week 2019 is here. Why join in? Business email overload is still one executive’s main concerns according to recent surveys. They worry about cleaning out their inboxes and will stay up until 10.00pm clearing the backlog only to find their inbox full again in the morning. All this leads to increased stress and potential mental health problems. Sounds familiar? Join the club. This is why we have been running the International Clean Out Your Inbox Inbox week for over a decade to help you improve performance and creativity whilst reducing the stress and mental health issues arising from business email overload.
During Clean Out Your Inbox week we will share tips and hints on how to clean out your inbox, help other also clean out their inbox and then change people’s email behaviour to reduce business email overload long term.
It doesn’t matter what your role is in the organisation, PA, EA, CEO, Sales Director, etc., business email overload will be impacting you and your colleagues and can mean time wasted, an important email is overlooked, an email is sent in haste and causes the next email media disaster, an email is open quickly and initiates a cyber attack.
So lets get started aiming for a clean inbox by Friday.
Calibrate how clean is your inbox. Use our Cost of BusinessEmail Overload Calculator and dare to share the results as above.
Share your Clean Out Your Inbox week SMART goals and plans (see above). There are two a prizes for the best sets (copy of ‘Brilliant Email‘ and for PAs and EAs ‘Taking Control of Your Inbox‘).
Each day we will post the Clean Inbox week action for that day. Meanwhile ..
Follow me on Twitter using #cleaninbox.
Join our Facebook page and Like us please.
Tags: Brilliant Email, Business email overload, clean out your inbox week, cost of email overload, Mental Health and Email, Stress and email overload, Take Control of Your Inbox