Unorganized email use is a time waster

I’ve spoken before about how constant email notification interruptions can waste up to eight hours a week, simply due to the time it requires to recover from such distractions. I’ve also spoken about the fact that most businesses simply assume their employees know how to use email correctly, when in fact they don’t. Here’s an article that provides further ammunition about how much time inefficient use of email costs.

An article in the UK Telegraph says:

The survey, of 4,000 people from 150 UK businesses, will show that the average worker wastes one hour every day through inefficient use of email.

… said that workers had not been given appropriate training for proper use of emails.

…but seldom if ever given any formal training on or provided any corporate guidelines for, it’s no wonder that email is a significant sources of stress, miscommunication and inefficiency for companies and individuals.

Now don’t forget that one hour a week wasted is ON TOP OF any time also lost due to interruptions!

It is really amazing when you stop and think about the fact that there probably is not a knowledge worker anywhere that doesn’t use email and yet their company has never bothered to train them in how to use it correctly. Therefore, for every employee a business has, they are wasting at least a 10-15% of their potential. In this day and age what business can afford to throw away 10-15% of their output per employee?

I have created a free downloadable document that details many of the common frustration of email that any business or individual should look at overcoming. As a lead on from this, I have also created the following documents: Overcoming email frustrations in Outlook 2007 and Overcoming email frustrations in Outlook 2003 which are available in print and downloadable format. Normally, these books sell for about $35 but until January 31, 2009 I have a special deal going which you can find out about here. To take advantage of this offer please contact me directly via director@ciaops.com.

Also, don’t forget we also conduct email productivity seminars in your office to help everyone become more effective with email and save you at least an hour a day that you can spend on getting your work done.

What a sad bunch

Here are some results from a recent AOL survey on email usage.

We have become addicted to email –

nearly half (46%) of email users said they’re hooked on email (up from just 15% last year) and 51% check their email four or more times a day (up from 45% in 2007). One in five said they check their email more than 10 times a day.

We are unable to cope with the volume –

More than one-quarter (27%) are so overwhelmed by their email that they’ve either declared “email bankruptcy,” deleting all their email messages to start anew, or they’re seriously thinking about doing so. Maybe it’s because 20% of users said they have over 300 emails in their inboxes!

We email on vacation –

More than 50% said they check their email while on vacation. It’s even higher among mobile users. Seventy-eight percent of those who have a mobile device check email while on vacation.

We email while we supposed to be sleeping –

Nearly half (41%) of mobile email users said they keep their cell phones near them when they sleep so they can hear when a new email comes in. Worse, 49% of mobile email users said they check their email every single time a new message arrives.

It seems clear to me that emails are creating real problems for most people, simply because they haven’t been taught the correct methods of dealing with them. Some simple techniques can really make big differences. I have documented some of these techniques in the following Overcoming email frustrations in Outlook 2007 and Overcoming email frustrations in Outlook 2003.

Normally, these books sell for about $35 but until January 31, 2009 I have a special deal going which you can find out about here. To take advantage of this offer please contact me directly via director@ciaops.com.

Also, don’t forget we also conduct email productivity seminars in your office to help everyone become more effective with email.

Email frustrations

I’ve just created a document that provides details on what are probably the top 5 email frustrations experienced by people. You can download a copy and let me know if you agree.

As a promotion to those who download this document, I am also offering a discount on my Enhanced Email quick start booklet (was $45 ex GST) and my Enhanced Email quick start seminar (was $599 ex GST). Both are designed to improve your productivity with email but the seminar is designed as a more in depth study of how to use emails effectively and efficiently in a business.

I’d also like to hear from any people out there who maybe interested in reselling my document or seminars. If you are, then please do not hesitate to get in contact with me directly (director@ciaops.com).

Otherwise, download the document, and if it is of no use to to you then I ask that you send it onto someone who maybe able to make use of it.

The value of “clear space”

I was reading an article from Intel recently saying they have noticed a decided drop off in innovation with the advent of interruptions (linked to things like email). They believe that because people’s head are so full of things that are perceived to be urgent that there is little room for new ideas to form. Intel are trying to foster the idea of “clear space”. Time simply devoted to thinking rather than doing.

I can’t but equate this back to the eastern philosophy of meditation. Many people I know laugh meditation off as some ‘new age hippy’ treatment and would never be caught engaging in the practice. To these people I’d content that it far more difficult to empty your mind of thoughts and keep it empty for a period of time. If you don’t believe me then try it for yourself. See how long you can go without thinking about anything. I’m certain you’ll find all sorts of things popping in there. Maybe then you’ll appreciate that finding ‘clear space’ is far more difficult that first imagined simply because we have become so accustom to filling it.

If your mind is a cup and constantly overflowing how is anything else ever going to get in? If you feel your mind is always preoccupied with ‘stuff’ perhaps you need to look at exactly what ‘stuff’ is in there. The problem is that most people believe they have to remember everything they need to know in their heads. For example, some time during the day you drill yourself into ‘remembering’ that you need milk. Later on, you find yourself standing in the dairy isle of a supermarket trying to rack your brain for what you needed to remember. Everyone’s been there.

The simplest way to empty the cup of your mind and allow it some ‘clear space’ is to move information from your brain to a trusted location where you can retrieve it if necessary. Where this information ends up doesn’t really matter, what matters is that your brain is confident that it is somewhere safe where it can be retrieved later and so no longer was to worry or ‘think’ about it.

Personally, I find a pen and paper to be the fastest, most convenient and flexible way to get things down however electronic means like OneNote, Evernote or whatever can achieve the same result. The secret is you have to find out what works for you. You’ll also find that you’ll improve the system that you use as you go along, which is exactly what is supposed to happen. The important thing is to take steps to free you mind from the mundane issues that can easily be dealt with in other ways.

I think that you’ll be surprised at how quick it is to create some mental ‘clear space’ and how easier things become once your mind has room to accept and process information. Your mind is like a high performance engine. If you keep filling it with crap fuel it is never going to reach its potential. If however, you highly refine what goes in then you are guaranteed of top performance.

Is your business ‘email qualified’?

We all make the assumption that everyone we know, including people that work for us and with us, knows how to use email, but is that really the case? Have you ever been taught how to use emails or have you simply picked it up along the way? So what’s to say that you haven’t also picked up some bad habits along the way and are simply reinforcing them constantly? Have you ever stopped to consider whether you and your business are actually using emails in the most productive and appropriate manner?

When a new person in your business commences, are they simply given an email address with the businesses domain attached and left to their own devices? Do you appreciate that it is now possible for that individual to send totally inappropriate emails to any place or person on the Internet? Better yet, do you appreciate that they are doing this with the business details attached? So all that hard work the business has invested in building up goodwill and reputation can be dashed by an employee who has been there less than a week.

Does you business help people understand when it is a appropriate to use Carbon Copies and Reply to all? Do they appreciate that anything they send via email will be retained, not only on your systems but also on whomever they send it to? Do they realise that any email information is easily searchable and can’t be recalled or deleted once sent? Do you let people send and receive personal emails from their business accounts? Most importantly, has the business ever made it clear to employees what they should and shouldn’t do? Has it explained to them the email ‘standards’ of the business, such as appropriate subject lines to be used, how they should address emails and how they should sign off? And importantly, when it maybe more appropriate to speak directly with the person rather than using email. Probably not.

It is amazing to think that email is probably the most used tool in business today and yet there is next to no training on how it should be used. There are next to no business standards about what is appropriate or acceptable usage. There is next to no understanding that information in emails that leaves the business from anyone, provides a direct reflection of that business in the minds of the receiver, wherever that may be. There is next to no effort or investment placed into the idea of using emails to improve the productivity of the business. Strange isn’t it? When businesses spend so much money on getting their corporate logo and stationery right, proof reading any document that leaves the business but almost no care is placed on what impact emails have inside and outside the organization.

We still seem to see email is a toy. We fail to treat it as a real business tool, although it has been that for a long time now. The most likely reason is that email transcends our lives. We use email to correspond with friends, family, strangers and business colleagues. What we have failed to appreciate is that the context in which we use email is very, very important. Businesses need to be mindful of this fact and should be reinforcing the correct context to its staff at all times. Email, like most technology is a tool. Used effectively it can garner great efficiencies. Used inappropriately it can not only be a weight dragging productivity down, it has the potential to cause real problems for any business.

Are you a bargain?

How easily do you give away your time and attention? Have you ever considered the cost of obtaining your time and attention? I’ll bet that most people give it away for next to nothing.

If you pass a colleague and they ask you for $100 the first thing that you’re going to ask them is probably, “What for?”. However, if someone comes to you and wants to interrupt you most people allow it automatically, for no charge. Even worse, it doesn’t even have to be a person that gets your time and attention for next to nothing, it can be a machine.

By default what happens when a new email arrives? Your machine goes ‘ding’ and you may see something flash on the screen. That’s your machine interrupting you. Most people typically stop what they are doing and like the ‘Pavlovian dog’ go and check to see what the email is about Problem is, the ‘ding’ isn’t very smart is it? Any email that arrives will solicit the same response from your computer. Sure, you may get a small preview, but does that actually prevent you from checking it? In most cases it makes it more likely because you want to see the whole message! Human beings are curious creatures. So, you’ve now allowed anyone, anywhere at anytime to interrupt you. It could be your boss, your partner, your mother or a spammer, it does matter. They all make the computer go ‘ding’ and obtain your attention. Should they all have the same access and priority? How cheap are you?

Wanna actually get something done? Maybe its time to challenge the defaults you currently accept. Why does your email program have to check email every 5 minutes? Maybe 15, 30 or even 60 is more productive. Here’s a radical thought, set the defaults to ‘manual’ so you can check the email when YOU choose! Why do you need to be notified of every email the instant it arrives? Why do you allow your machine to interrupt you with noises, flashing signs and the like when most of what you receive in email does not warrant immediate instant attention. You are giving low priority stuff much greater priority than it deserves. How cheap are you?

Don’t believe me? Try turning off all the notifications and increasing the retrieve times for email. Better yet, try a morning when you have something important to do, even a few hours, without opening your email program at all and see how much more you get done. If it works then maybe you’ve become too cheap and need to re-evaluate the value of your time and attention, because guess what? They’re far more valuable than you think, because they’re FINITE!

What do you get in return?

I’ve been doing some thinking about the growth in mobile devices that allow you to not only accept phone calls but also emails. There is little doubt that these devices provide those calling or sending you direct unparalleled access to your time but let me ask what do you get in return?

Think about the ability of these devices to allow interruption to your time whenever they ring or go ‘ding – you’ve got mail’. How do you handle these demands on your time? Most people I know stop what they are doing immediately and take the call or read the email. Is this productive use of your time? Is it helping you get things done? In most cases I doubt it.

What is more precious time or money? Time. Why? Because you can never get more of it but you can always get more money. Think about the people who have access to your time right now. Right at this very moment. Who can demand you attention immediately? Does this align with the way you want it? If not then you only have yourself to blame and the method by which you allow people to gain that access is perhaps something you need to examine.

Everyone only has a limited amount of time and attention they can allocate. How you allocate this says a lot about how much you will achieve your goals. Don’t fool yourself into believing that being ‘more connected’ saves your time, the reality could be very different if you stop and take a look.

Don’t check emails, process emails

Has your email taken on a life of its own? Is it the nexus of everything you do? Is it your to-do list, calendar, task scheduler and more? If it is then you are not doubt in a world of pain. My advice? You need to make a mental shift and realize that email is simply a medium for things to do, nothing else.

Everyone I know says that they “check” their email. No wonder their inboxes are overflowing and they feel constantly overwhelmed. Why? Because emails are required to be processed. That means after you have checked an email DO SOMETHING WITH IT! Don’t just leave it sitting there in your inbox. Process the damm thing and move onto the next thing you need to get done. Convert emails to actions. When you read an email ask what actions you need to take as a result of this email? Whether you delete the email, archive, respond or even defer it make sure that you have a system that allows you to process emails.

In reality you should aim to process your inbox to empty by the end of the day. Sure not always possible but none the less a good target to aim for. Your inbox is simply a container for emails as they arrive, it is not a container for saving them for all eternity while your procrastinate with how to best handle each one. Deal with it and move on. It is far more satisfying to finish the day with an empty inbox. You know you have achieved something!

You may have a laugh but have a look at your inbox right now, now look at anyone else’s inbox and I’ll bet there are many, many emails that have sat there for month even years. If you want to recover your productivity you need a system to process emails effectively and efficiently. I’ll write something about a system that works for me soon but for the time being, if you REALLY want to master your emails, start thinking PROCESS not CHECKING.