Steps to maximize email efficiency

The first challenge is to acknowledge that you can't absorb everything you think you need to know. Once you master that mental obstacle, things get easier.

You will be able to prioritize, delegate and just let things slide. You don't have to answer or even read everything that comes your way.

The idea of eliminating information is barely thinks. But this is about self-preservation.

Second, as you limit content, you'll learn to savor it more. Be ruthless as you can through all the "e-noise" and clear your decks for the important stuff.

Get started by spending sometime deciding what sources of information and intelligence are critical for you and your job. What are "must" reads?

Boil it all down to the highest-quality stuff, and read that first. Cancel or get rid of what's only marginal.

When you're the one doing the communicating, be more economical in everything you write, publish, broadcast and post online.

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The productivity of workers is jeopardized by too much e–mail

A downside of cheap communication, like the email, is that there is way too much of it.

The sheer volume of e-mail information flow seriously, threatens theirs advantages as knowledge workers suffer from a chronic state of mental overload, reduced productivity and a declining sense of well–being.

E–mail is becoming a tragedy, encouraging casual placement of corporate spam in the in–boxes of all.

Information overload exists for all business communication channels.

Instant messages, system alerts, phone calls, visits from co–workers and even self–interruptions occur so frequently that workers rarely have more than five minutes of focused work before an interruption occurs.

If users take an average of one minute to read and respond to each message, the current volume consumes more than a quarter of an eight–hour day.

With projected growth of incoming messages, workers could spend 50 percent of their workday managing e–mail by 2009. How much of that time is and will productive?

It's true, many of that time has profit value. But how many hasn't?

In order to establish parameters to measure the productivity related to e-mail, see this method: Costs of reading e-mails in companies.

"Lack of time" classic example with the email at workplace

Considering the negative effects that some written messages can have on productivity in the workplace, we could say that communication through e-mail can sometimes be rather "non-communicational".

In one of my consulting jobs on the strategic management of communication in customer care, I mentioned an alternative to be more proactive in the recurrent crisis that occurred when a massive technological service stopped working.

The technical support team could detect the technical shortcoming before clients did. So I told them to send an e-mail to those affected, warning them about the inconvenience, and informing them about the actions they would take to solve the situation.

In this way they could avoid surprises and clients wouldn't be annoyed by the service interruption and wouldn’t call to find out what was happening.

Although they fully agreed with our recommendation, and confirmed they could implement it, they didn’t. Sending that anticipated e-mail helped them avoid a lot of additional pressure caused by angry clients. However, they didn’t send it for a very simple reason: They didn't have the time to do it.

These were very smart and technically skilled people, so I had a hard time understanding why they didn’t take the initiative to send such a strategically important mail.

I continued investigating their daily activities, and found something that was surprising at the time, but later I realized it happened in many cases in this and almost all companies.

Being a mass consumption service company, it wasn't strange for them to receive some e-mails from angry clients who were dissatisfied by the quality of the technical support or attention they received.

Many of these messages were written in critical, demanding or "harsh" language (commonly used by clients complaining because they are disappointed with the attention they receive).

However, the source of this "lack of time" began when the recipients of those written complaints unconsciously added emotions that made feel offended by the client's message and took those criticisms and demands personally.

As a result, they ended up investing considerable amounts of time to respond to what they assumed was an offense, to "put the client in his/her place"... And... Guess how much time they used to do that?

This is a very common situation at the workplace. Therefore, a lot of personal time is unproductive and wasted.

So, if you want more time you need to improve your professional managment of email. See my survival guide.

Don’t forget the cost of spam

Even the small percentage of spam that gets through to workers can cost companies thousands, according to a report from security firm McAfee.

Though malware and preventing breaches hold the headlines – and the attention of many IT departments – spam can still be an issue.

Spam is not going away. Spammers are always thinking of new and innovative ideas.

While McAfee suggested those lost minutes could cost a firm of a thousand workers some US$182,500 in lost productivity, it’s always difficult to put a number on it.

McAfee says there is a difference between spam filters that offer 95 per cent coverage and 99 per cent. The cost could be as high as $41,000 for every percentage point.

For every one per cent getting through, that is costing an organisation. Lost productivity isn’t the only cost, as firms must also pay for security and archive more email because of spam.

We are always marketing ourselves

Where to start been more effective with e-mail at the workplace?

First of all, we need to be more aware of the fact that in all areas of contemporary society, we are always marketing ourselves as individuals.

This means that we need to take more into account the fact that we are always affecting the perception others have of us. We are always influencing that perception positively or negatively. There is no such thing as “no influence” or “neutral influence”.

We affect others with what we do or don’t do, and also with what we say or don’t say. So, we start defining our personal marketing and communication plan with the following questions:

* "How do I want to be known and remembered as a professional?"

* "With what values do I want others to associate me?"

The answers to these questions provide the guide we need on the type of actions we must take to positively affect others and obtain the professional perception we desire.

Second, we need to have a wide perspective of who our "clients" are. This can easily and efficiently be established answering the following question: "Who can speak about me, positively or negatively, as a professional and as a person?".

Our marketing strategies and tactics must be oriented towards all of them. Our clients are the individuals with whom we interact directly or indirectly, who are important to us professionally, and who can recommend us to others.

In a society where jobs are so interconnected, “external clients” are just as important for our personal marketing as are our co-workers, including bosses at all levels, the staff in other departments, and suppliers.

Yes, this answer is very broad because the most frequent marketing mistakes are made in part by underestimating the range of influence that the public or audience with whom we interact as clients have.

Finally, being more aware of our personal marketing implies being more aware of the tools we use to communicate our skills, competencies, values, and benefits. That is, we need to keep our interpersonal communication channels and media fine tuned.

These are made up by all our interpersonal communications, whether face-to-face, telephonic, or through e-mail, and by the form and content we convey through these means. That is, our body and our behavior are like our mobile marketing channels, with verbal and non-verbal messages.

In this context, e-mail increasingly has a greater impact on the professional image we project as individuals. Therefore, a better understanding of the factors that make written communication effective will allow us to assertively manage those aspects that determine our reputation through that medium.