Managing Email Madness – Part Three
We hope you enjoyed our series on managing email madness. In case you’re still experiencing resistance from your email recipients, or you’re just looking for some more great techniques, we’ve extended our series to include a third installment. In our final chapter, we’re going to look at some more tips from Stever Robbins on helping you to control the flow of email.
Send out Delayed Responses
This technique is great for those messages which require a response, but are not terribly urgent. Once you’ve composed your message, schedule it to be sent out at a later date. By delaying your message, you are training others not to expect immediate responses and you are also giving each other a little breathing room.
Ignore it
Yes, we said it, ignore your email. As we all know, if something is truly important, you’ll hear about it again, if not by email, by phone or even by someone taking the opportunity to come to your desk and talk to you about the matter (which, as we spoke about in Sitting Your Life Away, is a great habit to get into!)
Start Charging
And if none of the aforementioned tips work, you can always start charging people for sending you messages. A CEO Robbins worked with charged her employees five dollars from their budget each time they sent her an email. The result? Her overload has decreased, the relevance of emails has increased, and staff members are more prone to solving problems on their own.
In case you missed it, check out Part One and Part Two of Managing Email Madness.
