Ask yourself this question, but think carefully and honestly about the answer first: do you spend more time answering your emails than you do creating an organized inbox and carrying out your daily filing routine? Very likely, the answer will be no. It seems more and more of us are spending an increasing amount of time sorting through our emails than actually replying to them. This seems strangely absurd, since the whole principle of email is quick and easy communication. Yet if most of the time using the system is spent on keeping it tidy, how effective is the tool as a communications medium in the first place?
It is a growing problem, and Outlook productivity is hampered for many people by the catalogue of junk and groaning mountain of unfiled emails, most of which we don’t seem to bear the thought of deleting…
Whatever happened to the humble letter sent my snail mail? They arrived, and each in turn was opened, read, and then dealt with according to its urgency? Why should email be any less effective? The reasons are several. Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that so many people today don’t take as much care with the messages sent via email than they would if they were sent by post. Failure to include a greeting, or make it clear what the message is about, or include a comment about whether a reply is needed, and even including the sender’s name at the bottom are all reasons why we tend not to take as much notice of emails.
By not attaching as much importance and value to emails we send, we reduce the overall value of the whole communications medium. This includes the tools included in email programs such as Outlook which are designed to help us keep on top of everything. This causes email overload as we fail to read through our emails, or respond to them quickly enough, and eventually the email stress will get to us when we realize we have several hundred messages which need filing. (sounds familiar?)
Not only is this problem reducing the overall value of the system, but it is slowing down the efficiency with which communications could be achieved using email. With an organized inbox and a program such as Outlook there is no reason why we couldn’t be more effective with our emails. However, as with any system of communication, the weak links are the people that use it (dare I say the knowledge of the people who use it?).
There are solutions, however, and it is by relying on a variety of solutions that the system can achieve its potential. The most basic step forwards is to begin to attach as much importance to an email as you do a letter – whether as the one sending or receiving the message. The fact that the sender never walked to the post box shouldn’t make any difference to the value of the message. If it was worth sending at all, then it must have had value. This is so much more true as we send emails. We need to remember to add importance to the email!
The other solution is to consider improving your email productivity by using a third party tool such as MoveIT. This can help speed up the process of filing your messages, meaning that you spend less time housekeeping and more time getting on with responding to those messages that actually require a response. MoveIT has been proven to reduce email overload for everyone who use it on a regular basis.
