Email Heaven Or Email Hell, You Decide...

By Adrian Booth

Are you fighting a losing battle with your emails? You know the story, you’ve got important stuff to get on with, and then you look at your in-box. An hour later you realise all you’ve done is respond to a lot of things that maybe could have waited and you’ve made little or no progress with the urgent task. Trouble is, if you hope it will all go away and don’t look at your inbox you could find you’ve missed something really important.

If this sounds familiar, you are certainly not alone. Feeling swamped by emails affects all business...

...sectors and all businesses to varying degrees. For small businesses where time is a vital factor, getting to grips with your inbox should be a priority.

There’s no denying email is a remarkable breakthrough in communication, but it is also a beast we need to tame if we are going to use it effectively.

So here are ten common sense ideas about sending and receiving email, which should make things easier. It’s all about emailing unto others as you’d have them email unto you...

1. Email is a great way to communicate, but it isn’t an immediate medium. Somehow, we are losing the art of picking up the phone. Don’t assume people will read and act on your email straight away. If something is urgent, ring them.

2. The "Subject" line should give a clear indication of what the email is about. If we all use it for that purpose we can make a quick decision about whether to open the email now, and both the sender and the recipient can find the email later. It is unfortunately common to get emails from people which come as a reply to something you sent them last week or last month. Although... continued on page two >

 

 

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