Effective e Mail

Ray Roberston

Effective e Mail

27th September 2011

Ray Roberston

Todays ObjectivesTo look at the pro’s and con’s of e mail

To look at ways we can deal with our incoming e mail more effectively

To look at ways we can improve the effectiveness of the mail that we send

To look at some specific Outlook tutorials.

Ray Roberston

Me

Ray Robertson ELLT Manager West Suffolk CollegeRay.robertson@wsc.ac.ukwww.ELLTatWSC.ac.uk

I work with college senior managers, curriculum managers and teaching staff to ensure that we use technology effectively and efficiently to achieve our strategic and operational objectives.

Prior to my current post I lectured in Marketing and Sales and I hold post graduate qualifications in marketing and marketing management.

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E Mail

Benefit or Curse?

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What’s your view?

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Ray Tomlinson is not a household name, but perhaps he should be. Ray was responsible for the e-mail revolution.

In 1971, he developed the code that enabled him to send an e-mail between two computers for the first time. The man to blame

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Some food for thought

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34 per cent of workers feel 'stressed' by the sheer number of emails they receive and the obligation to respond quickly

and

a further 28 per cent feel 'driven' because they see them as a source of pressure.Source The Observer

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Research undertaken by Glasgow University found that employees working on a computer typically switched applications to view their emails as many as 30 or 40 times an hour, for anything from a few seconds to a minute.

While half the participants said they checked more than once an hour and 35 per cent said they did so every 15 minutes, monitoring software fitted to their machines for the experiment showed it was more often.

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62% of workers check business emails while at home or on holiday.

And

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Workers distracted by email experience a 10 point fall in IQ (more than twice that found in cannabis studies)

Plus

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Each day the average office worker spends 49 minutes managing emails.

4 hours is spent each day managing emails by senior managers.

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What about YOU?

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E mail should be a tool that improves communications

It should not be

A constant interruption to your workflow and a creator of stress

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Some situations / communications do require face to face or telephone conversations and e mail is not an effective substitute.

Keep in mind

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So lets look at improving our e mail practice from two angles:1.Dealing with incoming mail

2.Mail we generate

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Incoming

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Most Important that we

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Devise an e mail routine – and stick to it

Some Proven Ground Rules

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Resist continually checking your e mail

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Switch off alerts

Switch off email popup alerts on your desktop

Switch off email sound alerts on your desktop

Don’t set up email alerts on your smart phone

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Check e mail no more than once an hour (if its that urgent they should call you)

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Each time that you check your email, process it immediately (more on this next)

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Effectively processing your incoming mail

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Folders for filing

mail

Working Folders • Answer• Read• Follow Up

Next Actions Task / List

Create Folders

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Mail

• That requires no action

Mail • That you can deal with in under

two minutes

Mail• That needs more than two

minutes

• Mail that you need to keep

Process

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You can often choose to ignore these messages altogether. They weren’t intended for you anyway – you can delete them or file them in a CC/BCC folder.

Don’t give into paranoia i.e. I must read everything to make sure I know what’s going on.

CC’d or BCC’d

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• DeleteE Mails that require no

action

• DeleteE mails that you have acted

on within 2 minutes

• Put in your working folders (Answer, Read, Follow Up)

E Mails that require longer responses or

further actions

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To reply or not to reply?Ask yourself, does this mail need a reply? If you can reply quickly,(under two minutes) then do it straight away it will save time.If it needs action that will take longer, file it in your answer, read or follow up folders.

This also helps avoid situations where you forget to take action because you've briefly looked at an email, and it has been marked as read.

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Clear out working folders

once a day

- Reply- Act upon

- File- Delete

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Choose the time of day that you’re least productive to focus on responding to and clearing e-mail

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Be very careful when forwarding messages.

Make sure that any forwarded message is truthful and accurate. 

The truth of alarmist e-mails, such as rumours, virus warnings, pleas for help, prayer requests… can be checked out on sites such as                     TruthOrFiction.com. 

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Deleting Mail

Deleting from your Inbox is not sufficientYou must also empty your “Deleted Items” folder

You should also empty your Sent Items folder

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Use the ‘out of office’ message when on holiday to reduce email volume from colleagues.

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Any other suggestions?

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Outgoing Mail

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Email is a good way to communicate, but it isn't an immediate medium.

Don't assume people will read and act on your email straight away. If something is urgent, ring them or if possible go and see them.

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Keep it brief. Think about what it is like to be in receipt of long emails.

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The PASS Process• The four questions the PASS process asks are:

o P for Purpose – What is the purpose of your email?o A for Action – What action needs to result from your email? Does it have a due

date?o S for Support – What supporting documentation needs to be attached to your

communication?o S for Summary – Have you successfully summarized your email message in the

subject line?

• Only after successfully evaluating each of these questions should you click the infamous “send” button. Let’s look at them a little closer.

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P – What is the purpose of your email?

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First, does your email correlate with a meaningful objective or task?

If it does not, you may need to ask yourself whether the email needs sending at all.

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After concluding that the message is vital to something of importance, you need to read your email message and ensure that it’s purpose is clearly communicated through the message body.  

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Try to summarize what you’re striving to accomplish through the communication in the first paragraph. That way, the reader is able to read the remaining content of your email from the right context.

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A – What action is required as a result of your email?

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The 3 most common email actions:

Task: The recipient has to complete an actual physical task (for example, order report copies or call Jack Doe).

Respond: The recipient needs only to respond to the email with the information that you requested.

Read: The recipient needs only to read the email for their benefit.

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Eliminate confusion regarding your expectations from the recipient by clearly stating the action you want them to take.

Include any due dates necessary for the actions requested. Remember to be specific.‘Can you please finalise the usage report and mail it to me by 29th of September.’

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S – is any supporting documentation required?

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Ensure you have identified and attached any and all supportive documentation required by your communications purpose or needed by the recipient to perform any of the actions you have requested.

You cannot expect somebody to read the monthly sales report if you have not attached the monthly sales report to the email message.

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If you are sending an attachment, remember lots of people get their emails on the go on a smart phone so help them by including the content of the attachment or a summary of it, in the body of the email as well where appropriate.

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S – Summary in the subject line?

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Use the "Subject" line to give a clear indication of what the email is about.

Receivers can then make a quick decision about whether to open the email now, and both the sender and the recipient can find the email later.

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Very common to get emails from people which come as a reply to something you sent them last week or last month. Although they are introducing a new subject, they've simply clicked on the last email and haven't changed the subject line.

The result is that the subject line doesn't reflect the content and this confuses everyone.

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Send?

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Only send your mail after you have checked PASS. If you do:• There will be much less sending messages back and

forth since you’ve ensured the clarity of your message’s purpose.

• Your expectations of the recipients will more likely be accomplished due to clarifying the actions required in the message.

• You will be sure the recipient has everything necessary to get the job done.

• And you can be confident that the true meaning of your message will be received within its subject line.

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Consider including an automatic signature for your email messages that states what time of day you will be reading your messages.

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Before you HIT Send

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Re-read messages and use spelling, grammar checks before sending.

Re-read what the message says and how is said.

Think about possibilities of misinterpretation.

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Never

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Blurt a message impulsively.

Say something electronically which you would not say face-to- face.

Use e mail to vent emotions

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