Monday, November 28, 2011
Work Smart: Disrupt Your Inbox
Fast Company: If you're looking for a quick way to improve productivity for yourself as well as those around you, look no further than your inbox. Most of us take email for granted now, which is why there is an opportunity there to improve and optimize how you communicate. In this week's episode I'll tell you about the techniques used by a variety of different entrepreneurs to optimize their email correspondences.
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23 comments:
Several of these email pointers are more or less common sense but nonetheless are very good things to be aware of. I think I will try the idea of three sentence emails. I generally make an effort to send very terse emails but having a sentence limit is a good idea. The most valuable piece of information that I gleaned from this article is the idea of numbering items which makes follow up correspondences easier and this is something I will definitely try in the future. The other valid point here is to put action items at the top of the email so it is the first thing they see.
These are some good tips for e-mailing efficiently. I do agree with Jackson that some of the pointers are common sense, but are useful if you didn't know them already. I have found myself lately writing very short e-mails and not poring over the wording of them as much as I used to, which saves time and accomplishes the same result. I used to be overly concerned with perfecting my e-mails and really making sure they were good before sending, but that took too much time. I think keeping the subject concise and relevant will also help direct the recipient to the main idea of much more quickly. On a side note, does anyone else agree that those last few seconds of Scott's random smiling footage in all of these FastCompany videos is really awkward?
While these tips seem like common sense, I can't even say how many times I see e-mails that don't comply with these. Subject lines is a personal pet peeve. If I don't find a subject line helpful in a received e-mail, I will change it in my inbox. Reply all is also hugely irritating. I think that if e-mails were just written in a more careful manner, that everyone could save some time sorting through their e-mails. How hard is it to write a decent subject line and check to see who will actually receive it?
While I agree with Jackson that a lot of the points being made here should really be common sense by now, I'm glad to see them posted. Another one that I would add it just to always maintain an awareness of who an email is going to, especially if it's to a list or group. Make sure information being distributed is only the info that everyone actually needs to see, and leave the rest for separate direct emails to individuals. This would also help fulfill the article's advice to write shorter emails, since only the genuinely useful information would be going in the "to everyone" email, while the rest would be split up by department.
Well, judging by the amount of emails I get a day that follow few if any of these suggestions, I'd disagree with the response group here that says they are common sense. The bulletpoint that really hit me was the action items at the top of the page/email. Often, when scanning through notes, I find people stop once they get to their section and don't necessarily track all the way to the bottom (which is where CMU production managers generally put action items...I'm guilty). Moving this section to the top would help assure that if people read nothing else about the meeting, they would at least have an idea of what needs to happen next.
I agree that email etiquette should be something that everyone thinks about before sending a email. Most of these are great points. I typically try to keep my emails short and to the point, but sometimes an explanation is needed. He does not address the issue of tone. It is nearly impossible to read tone in an email. Using edgy subject lines may cause a response that you were not expecting. Some may take offense to your tone, when in fact, you never meant any harm in the words you typed. Be careful when trying to be edgy.
I'm tired of hearing about the "Reply All" no-no. But I did find the tip about putting the action words in the beginning instead of the end interesting. I can see how someone would skim the beginning to decide if the email was important and delete it potentially missing the important parts. I also believe the 3 sentence rule. Say what you have to say. And the subject should be the point in 1-3 words. Numbering issues is also probably smart to use in hand with the putting actions in the beginning. If you put it in the beginning of each bullet then they'll be more likely to read each important note instead of scanning and thinking they got the important parts.
I am a big fan of emails, and believe that they can be used to our advantage in most cases. A lot of what was covered in this video does seem to be common sense, but until recently, this was not always the case. It says a lot about how electronically developed we have become that we consider 'email etiquette' to be common sense. With this in mind, then, this video seemed far too short to be helpful, and merely pointed out a few tips that we may not have already been aware of. I personally do not agree with the 3-sentence rule, as I think that it is just another testament to how fast-paced and distracted we tend to be when we work online that we can't be trusted to coherently read and respond to a longer email (of course, talking is still a thing as well). I'd love to see a video clip that outlined an 'email-response etiquette.'
I agree with Brian that often we don't put action items on top but rather on the bottom. Maybe this is something we need to adjust here. The tips may seem basic but we don't always think about these things when we are multitasking, as we often do here. Taking a little bit of time to keep oneself organized pays off.
Usually I can't get many useful tips from these productivity tips. Most of these things were common sense. But this week I got two good ideas to think about it. 1. It's all about response time. So maybe I do not need to be entirely thorough with a reply. If I send an email and the other person needs more information, they can ask me. So I'll try to implement the three sentence idea. 2. Actions at the top. I don't thing most people do that, it makes sense why it's at the bottom. But can totally see why action items need to be at the top. I'll work on these in the future.
Numbering subjects in a multi-item email is one that I'd seen but about which I had never really thought; it seems like a really handy way of dealing with this, more so than the orignal/reply orignal/reply orignal/reply so format used so commonly.
Three sentences, front loading, and terseness are good, but some emails need more information. I've found that the best tool here is having a carriage return every time there's a new idea; that way, when somebody skims it, they don't miss any ideas. Subject lines with the general topic bracketed and then a descriptive title for the email's contents are also helpful.
Ehhh OK there are some helpful points, not rocket science, but nonetheless helpful points. These are good things to do it the email is very much an "action email" with "action items". If I need someone to do a particular, quick task, I would try to keep it under 3 sentences. And I do like that more memorable, snappier email subjects with get people's attention a lot faster. That being said, use these tactics too often and they will rapidly loose effectiveness.
I like the three sentence email idea...but it's not always practical, especially when a lot of information about one topic needs to be delivered. What I have explored within emails is the bullet point. When I need to highlight information (particularly to an inexperienced run crew) it is helpful to have a sentence "header" followed by succinct bullets of information. It is brief, and easily accessible, more so that a paragraph of text.
The point that is interesting to me is making edgy subject lines. I know that my subject lines are rarely edgy or even that interesting, but that is because I am trying to make them efficient and give the reader as much context on the email before opening it as possible, which is kinda left out of the tips. For example, I usually put the name of the show first thing in the subject line, then a few words on what the email references. I can't think of a reason in our industry to use edgy subject lines, but I'll have to think about that in the future. I also really like the numbers tip, but it doesn't go into much detail about what they are talking about. I'm guessing that if you make a numbered list of points in the email then the other person can respond in-line, which is very helpful at times.
Interesting common sense. I find that I usually begin with a professionally worded email, and then match the professionalism of the person I am communicating with. Also, if I email from my iPhone.. There is a signature that says "from my iPhone" so it is usually clear as to why my email is not a three page paper. Also, I never emailed before I came here... where email has a monopoly over communication on campus. I see email in general as an informal method of communication, so etiquette is not as critical rather than a business letter or such.
Interesting common sense. I find that I usually begin with a professionally worded email, and then match the professionalism of the person I am communicating with. Also, if I email from my iPhone.. There is a signature that says "from my iPhone" so it is usually clear as to why my email is not a three page paper. Also, I never emailed before I came here... where email has a monopoly over communication on campus. I see email in general as an informal method of communication, so etiquette is not as critical rather than a business letter or such.
I like the idea of putting the action-steps first. Knowing what needs to be done (as in, a good part of why the email was sent) first is helpful because it gets the necessary out of the way and allows the rest of the email to read as simple notes.
In addition, I very much agree about the reply-all feature. Only send a reply-all if it is absolutely necessary that everyone recieves the email. I know it's really easy to mix up "reply" with "reply all" if you're not thinking about who you're replying to, but it's really helpful to only send an email to those who need to get it.
These are pretty simple little things that we can integrate into our email sending. Many of these seem like common sense yet so few of people actually do it. I defiantly think that people should keep their emails to under 3 sentences I know when I open an email and there are 1000 words in it I often close it and come back to it later. Nothing is worse than reading a really long email and thinking Wow that could have been stated in one sentence. When it comes to emails less is definitely more.
These are very useful tips for an industry like theatre. It's really important to get your point across to people using the right words to quickly and simply express your message because sometimes, you can't always tell what the sender's tone is upon delivering a message. Most of these tips seem like common sense things, but it's always good to be reminded of how to send a proper, professional email.
The best thing about this post is that it is structured the way it advises you to structure an email. That's what really drew me in here; the way the article began with an outline of what it was about, then went into a clear but short explanation of each tip. I should probably relate this to class. It's structured just like Understanding Comics!
I really try an use the three sentence email whenever possible. However, many times the content must exceed that limit. I completely agree that for most casual correspondence this is a good idea, but for "info dump" emails, this structure is not sufficient.
I also believe that the subject is key. It must be concise, but yet allow the recipient to prioritize.
I do however, like the idea of putting the action items at the top. This then follows that anything below is indeed a note and not something that must be acted on. On the flip side, will people then stop reading after the action items?
I really try an use the three sentence email whenever possible. However, many times the content must exceed that limit. I completely agree that for most casual correspondence this is a good idea, but for "info dump" emails, this structure is not sufficient.
I also believe that the subject is key. It must be concise, but yet allow the recipient to prioritize.
I do however, like the idea of putting the action items at the top. This then follows that anything below is indeed a note and not something that must be acted on. On the flip side, will people then stop reading after the action items?
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