I know most people out there hate email and find it to be incredibly annoying and a waste of time, but the fact of the matter is we all have to deal with it in some way on a daily basis. That is why I believe you should take the time to learn some of the nuances that can allow you to better manage email and leverage it as a communication medium. A lot of the information that I have picked up came from being in a fraternity that was driven by email and then working at Google where I have around 150 emails a day flowing into my inbox. I have put together some tips and comments on email that I thought I'd share here. None of these tips are rocket science, if anything, advanced common sense at best.
Managing Email:
- Practice Inbox Zero. If you actually take one piece of advice that I give, please take this one! Inbox Zero is an art of keeping your inbox clean by processing email into different categories. I use four categories: Action, Read, Waiting, and Archive. Watch the video by Merlin Mann to get a better idea of the system, if you're short on time hit up 14:57 - 24:50.
- Learn the keyboard shortcuts of your email program. For Gmail there are incredibly powerful keyboard shortcuts that can save you an incredible amount of time. You can get the entire list here.
- Create Labels/Folders depending on your mail client. If you're using Gmail using labels allows you to better search and retrieve email later on. For example, you can do a search for "label:travel nwa" and it will pull up any email that has the label of "travel" and contains "nwa" in the email. Since Gmail alphabetizes your labels, you can do things like adding a '_' to bring the important labels to the top and adding a 'z-' to send less important labels to the bottom.
- Use filters or some sort of routing rules to manage the flow of email.
Communicating Through Email:
- Write clear subject lines that indicate the desired purpose of the email. If you are specifically asking for action to be taken include something like "Contact For Michigan IT Needed." This seems like a no brainer, but people continue to write terrible subject lines or skip it all together. So put yourself in the shoes of the reader and write a subject line that will indicate the desired affect of the email.
- Triple check that you have attached any files that you reference in the email. Also, consider what format you are sending it in, if it is Office 2007 does everyone have a program that can open that format?
- Make sure that you convert any and all links into click-able links. If you reference a website and copy and paste it into the email make sure you use the program to tell it that's a web link. This will allow the person reading your email to just click the link rather than having to copy and past it into a new tab.
- Specifically state what you want the reader to do in the beginning of the email. If you're writing out some thoughts and just want someone to read them, state that in the beginning of the email. That way the reader has context as to why they are reading your email and can be thinking about what they need to do once they have finished reading it.
- Proofread! Make sure you double check your email for major spelling and grammatical errors. This is definitely something I'm terrible at and am always trying to get better at.
- Use a signature that makes sense. I personally don't believe in using signatures, but if you need to use one make sure that it is concise and depicts the information that is relevant. I've seen so many 8 line signatures that are so obnoxious. Why do you need to give someone your email in your signature when you are emailing them? Why not spice it up a bit, include a link to your blog, FriendFeed profile, etc.
- Don't send emails angry! If you find yourself pounding out a passionate email, save it as a draft and re-read it a few hours later and make sure that you're being professional and the email is appropriate. You rarely will regret not sending the email immediately, but there is a much better chance you will regret sending a passionate email.
- Don't Email. Instead consider shooting the person an IM or a phone call.
What other email tips would you add? Are there any that you disagree with me on?
