This blog referral post is about effective use of email. If you are looking for tips on how to reclaim your inbox or how to obtain a work-life balance, find a nice white friend and talk about it over coffee.
Treat all of these tips as short experiments and adapt it for your own situation
1. “Batch” email at set times.
2. Send and read email at different times.
3. Don’t scan email if you can’t immediately fix problems encountered.
4. Don’t BIF (before I forget) people during off-hours.
5. Don’t use the inbox for reminders or as a to-do list.
6. Set rules for email-to-phone escalation.
7. Before writing an email, ask yourself: “what problem am I trying to solve?” or “what is my ideal outcome?”
8. Learn to make suggestions instead of asking questions.
Check out Tim Ferris’ blog “How to Stop Checking E-mail on the Evenings and Weekends” for further explanations on these tips.
5 responses so far ↓
talk19 // 20 Feb 2008 at 9:47 am
What does BIF mean?
Berno // 20 Feb 2008 at 10:19 am
@talk19: BIF (before I forget).
Thanks for the comment.
RemmyX25 // 25 Feb 2008 at 12:01 pm
Huh… I think I learned something from this
socialclimber // 25 Feb 2008 at 6:37 pm
nice tips! really needed this, been flooded with email all day, can’t seem to organize my inbox, or well.. myself!
Brett // 26 Feb 2008 at 12:45 am
Good tips. Email can be such a mind drain. I’ve found scheduling 3 times a day to check work email makes a big difference. It’s hard to stick to, but it’s amazing how many issues work themselves out by the time you get to checking your messages.
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