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Showing items tagged with "email overload" - 128 found.

Easter break – top tips to reduce email overload

This is a great time to re-look at you inbox and check your level of email overload.  Don’t forget you can use our Email Overload on-line tool to check how you are doing.

Your inbox should be your work in progress and contain no more than 50 emails.  Here are some tips to help you spring clean your inbox and plan a strategy for managing the email overload more effectively on your return.

Whether you are going on leave or staying in the office here are some quick way to clean out the inbox.

1. Sort by date then by subject and person and delete all those old chains.
2. Move all emails over a week old in to a separate folder (eg called ‘Old’)
3. Flag any which still need action (or create a task from them) and move them to a separate Pending folder.
4. Be ruthless about those newsletters you receive and keep unsubscribing.

If you are taking some leave make sure you:

1. Set a safe and simple Out of Office Message – eg ‘I am out of the office with limited access to email.  If it’s urgent contact X.’  Don’t say you are on leave that is a give a way for the cyber criminal.
2. Create some rules to folder automatically second order priority emails eg Cc’d and All User.
3. Make an appointment with yourself to catch up with the backlog. However talk to your colleagues first as that is the quickest way to catch up!
4. Give someone else access to your inbox whilst you are away.  After all the emails you receive on the company email address belong to the company.  If you do receive lots of personal emails create some rules to divert them to folders.

For more tips see earlier blogs.  Also why not invest a couple of hours on one  of our Brilliant Email Masterclasses.

Tags: Easter break, email overload

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Thinking Outside the Inbox

Think outside the inbox

Last week a client complained at being emailed by another colleague who sat just five desk away.  How often does this happen to you? We have a love hate relationship with email: its fast and easy but not always the best communications channel.  An over dependence on email at the expense of other channels is one of the primary causes of email overload.  Yet how many of us make the effort to think outside the inbox before hitting send.

Very few judging by many of my client’s experiences.  However, some leading organisations are being innovative and for example banning all internal emails and having no email days in an effort to both reduce email overload and improve communications.  These range from high-tech companies to housing associations and architects.

My behaviour will influence your behaviour here are three ways to encourage others to think outside the inbox.

1.     Provide an incentive for them to talk to you.

2.     Use an alternative tool to provide information which people really need, for example the form for requesting leave, a sales update.

3.     Implement email free times and office zones.

To reduce the email dependency (and even email addiction) above all else make sure you create the role model: next time you are about to hit send, get up and walk and talk to the person. Try responding to external email with a phone call.  You might be pleasantly surprised at the extra information you pick up to help progress that important sale.

Tags: alternatives to email, email overload, No Email Day, No internal email, Walk before emailing

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Articles and Blogs of Note – February 2015

January into February are often lean months for good news stories outside of real major world events.  From a technology standpoint, three threads really stood out, security, email etiquette and the effect of mobile devices on our wellbeing.  In the light of the Sony hacking offensive the emphasis on cyber crine and email etiquette is not surprising. Here are our top five articles and blogs of note.

Articles of note

1. Sony hacking saga – the true reputational damage as Amy Pascal steps down.   A summary of events and the cost to personal professional lives when a hacker finds email which should never have been sent in the first place.
2. Being a good diplomat takes more than Ferrero Rocher.  Appalled at the lack of language and social skills, the Foreign Office set up a new Academy to enable its Diplomats to regain their standing overseas.  They will be taught not only languages such as Mandarin but also how to use social media.  Will the courses extend to email etiquette and when its more effective to use pen and paper rather than email?  There is also a very good article in The Times with some tips and hints which might give anyone a competitive advantage during sales negotiation (but you need a subscription to read it).
3. FTSE 350 cyber governance health check tracker report.  Although aimed at larger organisations, it makes excellent reading for every business owner and IT Director.
4. Symantec cyber crime survival guide.  A short video on how to reduce the risk of a cyber attack and manage the after effects.  You can download a handy aid memoir.  Interestingly user education is a key point.
5. Switching on outside office risks relationships. A new study from Surrey University has found that the long hours culture predicated by mobile devices and email overload is increasing levels of stress.

If email security, email etiquette or the impact of email overload on well being are on your agenda for 2015, why not contact Mesmo Consultancy now for a free consultation? Either call us on +44 (0)1202 434340 or email us.

Tags: Articles of note, cyber crime, email etiquette, email overload, email security, Sony hacking, well being

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Email – will it survive 2015?

A year from now, will we still be using email as the prima face business communications tool?  That is the question I am always asked at this time of year.  In a word ‘yes’.  It is not only the most durable technological innovation, but in essence it has changed little in its thirty year life cycle.  It is still a lean and mean messaging system, all be it we have bent it to be all things to all people, (from a channel through which to manage people, make them redundant and invite them for sex tonight).   However, here are five things I do foresee with respect to email which may also help reduce email overload.

The future of email

1. The trend towards pen and paper will continue and especially as upmarket fountain pens and beautiful writing paper become objects of desire.
2. Increasingly people will disconnect whilst on leave and after working hours following the example set in 2014.
3. Pull rather than push information cultures will be more common as organisations switch to using social media and internal discussion forums to replace email conversations and share knowledge quickly.
4. Email software such as Unified Inbox which can aggregate your electronic messages will come of age (from email to social media messages).
5. Standards of email etiquette will improve as organisations seek ways to limit the fall out from cyber crime attacks like the Sony one.

Consequently, email overload may become less of a drain on people’s productivity as we learn to change our email behaviour. However, it will be important not to replace one set of bad behaviours with another.  A change in email behaviour needs to be carefully managed and we at Mesmo Consultancy will be pleased to share how with you how we have helped other organisations make this transition.

Where do you feel we will be with email by the end of 2015?  Will it still be the dominant backbone of  business communications?

Tags: cyber crime, disconnect on leave, Email behaviour, email overload, Mesmo Consultancy, pen and paper, Unified inbox

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November Articles of Note

Here are the articles and blogs which caught our attention in October.

1.  Debrett’s misguided use of Bcc etiquette with a reply from Dr Seeley on the correct time and place to use bcc rather than To and cc.
2. Three approaches to reducing email overload – guest post by Michael Einstein on why changing organisational email culture is so crucial.
3. Defend yourself: the police can’t cope with cybercrime.  The police can no longer cope with the scale of on-line fraud.  The City of London’s chief Police Commissioner urges users to act more responsibly.
4. Cybercrime battling a growth industry. Cybercrime is estimated to cost industry over $400bn. A review of sources and strategies to tackle cyber crime.
5. New Ponemon report shows cyber crime on the rise. Cybercrime is estimated to be rising by 10% per year.
6. That itch to check your inbox is only human.   Its the marshmallow syndrome all over again, or is it?
7. How tech is changing the way we think and what we think about. An off the wall look into the future from Clive Thomson author of ‘Smarter Than you Think’.

What have we missed. What did you read which caught you eye?

Tags: bcc, Clive Thomson, cyber crime, cybercrime, Debrett's, email culture, email etiquette, email overload, Michael Einstein, Ponemon

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