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The end of email? 5 tips for reducing email overload

January 4, 2012

James Murdoch must be wishing News International had stuck with printed memos as the Leveson enquiry threatens to pin the blame on him for the phone hacking scandal.

Tips for reducing email overload

Having a problem with too many emails? Some solutions to this will be part of our next event "How to be more Productive with Less Stress" on Friday 16th March 2012

The rest of us face the daily battle to select the important from the apparently urgent, as we try to spend time on the priorities that will drive our organisations forward and not fall into the trap of our Inbox becoming our To Do List. Some solutions to this will be part of our next workshop “How to be more Productive with Less Stress” on Friday 16th March 2012.

The Financial Times recently reported that some organisations are phasing out the use of email in favour of more sophisticated social networking tools that filter and sort the most relevant information on the user’s behalf. Atos the IT services business have committed to doing away with internal email by 2014 and the Canadian business Klick, which employs 200 people, have developed their own internal messaging service called Genome. Ebay no longer send emails over the weekend and Intel have ‘no email Fridays’.

A leading pharma company with sophisticated spam filtering was concerned to discover that 70% of messages received by a typical employee are not business critical. For different reasons, increasing regulation has resulted in some bankers reportedly sending hand written notes where an audit trail isn’t desirable.

It’s too early to say when email will be replaced, so for now here are a few tips for reducing email overload:

  1. Send less and get less
  2. Add a footnote that explains how frequently you check your inbox ie before 10am and after 4pm
  3. Use your out of office to suit your working patterns ie when travelling or working to meet a deadline
  4. Create a primary and secondary account, use the primary account for critical messages, mobile devices and unsubscribe from any unsolicited mailings
  5. In the subject bar of all emails you send add either PLEASE REPLY or NO REPLY NECESSARY, it might catch on

More tips in our previous blog: 10 ways to beat email overload.

Register now for our next workshop “How to be more Productive with Less Stress” on Friday 16th March 2012.

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