Reducing Email - For SEs
Entering reduce email into Google results in over 15,000,000—yes, 15 Million—matches. If there is that much information available on the subject, why is it still such a ubiquitous problem, especially among sales engineers?
In my experience, most senior reps and SEs have been through at least one time management course—though most rarely spend much time on the email problem. There is a huge Getting Things Done (GTD) movement which does talk a lot about email management, but most people fail to implement recommendations it preaches.
Considering these facts, I don’t have high hopes for getting you (yes, YOU) to change your bad email habits, but I will at least share my personal tricks in case it helps even one SE.
I. Stem the tide of incoming email – You know that cute quote of the day thingie you subscribed to, get rid of it. Email alerts from PC Magazine or other subscriptions, get rid of them. You can also change the address to reflect a personal email address, but I recommend getting rid of them completely. Do not try to manage them with inbox rules. It doesn’t remove the temptation.
II. Get mandatory discussion lists out of your inbox. Use rules to help. Only review them in batches. Email digests are best. You can also use rules to send routine department announcements to a separate folder. I won’t tell you which one some of mine go to
III. Never wait for the due date. I have yet to find a system that allowed me to delay responding to an email action item that didn’t involve me screwing up from time to time. If it’s a quick task, I do it right then. If it will take longer than 5 minutes I leave it in my inbox until I get to a good stopping point from my other work. If you can’t find time to get the day’s items finished, do them first thing next morning before beginning new work. Once completed, delete or file them.
IV. At the end of each day, file or delete all email out of your inbox except for tomorrow’s action items. You want as much of a clean slate as possible every single day.
V. As for filing, this is becoming less important as search technologies get better. Google Desktop, Microsoft Desktop, and Lookout are all pretty good. Because none I’ve found to be 100% reliable, I do still file some things such as trip itineraries, frequently referenced information, and project related data. Don’t have too many folders that it makes it time consuming to organize. Simple is better than more accurate in this case for me. Do make sure you get everything out of the inbox though.
VI. Dealing with sheer volume seems to be a bigger issue for managers on up. At some level this is inevitable, but whenever I hear of folks complain (read: brag) about getting over 500 emails a day they need to respond to, my only comment is: You’re doing it (email) wrong. But that’s a different post.
Many people have success with other techniques like self imposed time limits or scheduled intervals. I would recommend leaving that as a last resort. Email, like it or not, right or wrong, is a de facto communication channel for many people. Imposing too much rigidity outside of industry norms will aggravate people.
I also have a bit of an issue with those that avoid email using the defense of “If it’s important, you should call me.” I’ll be the first to admit I am guilty of sometimes using email (or instant messaging, again, another post) when a phone call is more appropriate. The thing about phone calls is that (while more personal) are infinitely more time consuming. There is voice mail, playing phone tag, the mandatory 5 minute “how’s the weather” introduction. I have also found that most people (including myself) need a few minutes of thought to accurately respond to certain questions. Ask me a something complicated over the phone and I may have to drone on for a few minutes before I clarify my thoughts. Email allows the person to dedicate the appropriate time to answering the question and forces a tendency towards brevity and clarity.
So in summary, my recommendations are:
- Implement the basic principles (or your own adaptation) above
- Don’t impose too many rules on your colleagues. Be responsive.
- Accept that it is a de facto means of communication for many and treat it with about the same level of care as a phone call and dedicate time to the activity accordingly.
Similar to the feeling you get once you purchase a new car only to notice that seemingly every other car on the road is the same as the one you just purchased: I noticed two other posts on addressing email come across my desk.
One is from Mastering Technical Sales and the other is from Gina Trapani of Lifehacker guest posting on Unclutterer. I recommend reading both of these alongside this post. The primary reason is that there just happens to be a lot of disagreement between all 3 of us authors.
That just goes to show you that there is no one size fits all rule. Each one of us is different and thus will benefit from more from certain systems which certainly depends on your job and company culture.
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Filed under: Time Management
