E-mail « An Extra Hour Every Day

Aug

20

Email Signature

by Nicolas

It is common practice to set up an email signature but there is alway room to improve. In principal there are two kinds of email signature:

1) When you write a new mail

When you initiate a new mail you should include your full email signature with name, title and contact details. It will also save you significant time if you also include a general greeting above your signature so that you don’t write “Best regards” hundreds of times per week. In case you work in an international environment where you might use more than one language you can put the greetings in multiple languages next to each other.

2) When you reply to a mail

Even when you only reply to a mail I recommend to add an email signature. But to do not write all the staff again each time but just the essential such as your name, your phone number and your mail address. In case the receiver wants to give you a quick phone call it will save him time.

I recommend making it easy for your email addressees to give you a phone call. Many misunderstandings and completely useless email exchanges could be avoided if one just took the phone to clarify the issue.

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Aug

03

Tips about writing emails

by Nicolas

Emails are an important part of communication with all private and business partners. We should therefore also be careful in writing emails. This is especially true when you consider that most corporate mails are never really deleted and remain on corporate servers and data-center backups for many years. It therefore makes sense to consider a few basic rules with regards to communication via email:

First ask yourself if a mail is really necessary. Emails are often misinterpreted and it might be more effective to deal with the matter via phone.
Be selective in the distribution list, especially with the selection of people on copy (cc). Do they really need this information or is the message important enough to include higher management?
If the message is a mailing including external parties you might consider to use the bcc function. This will not disclose the receivers email address to all other receivers and protect their privacy.
Activate the spellcheck in your mail application, so that it corrects whilst you are writing. This is more convenient than the check before sending.
NEVER, NEVER send an email when you are angry, most of the times you will regret sending it later. Instead you can write the mail and first save it in drafts. It will make you feel better. Then you keep it in drafts over one night and review the mail the next morning. Usually you will rephrase major parts of it before finally sending it.
Be careful when using CAPITAL LETTERS since this indicates shouting.
ALWAYS open the attachment before sending the mail to make sure that this is really the document you wanted to send.
Be aware of the difference between “Reply” and “Reply to All”, so that you don’t create spam mail for many people.
Be careful when your mail application auto-completes the receiver. It quickly happens that you select the wrong person, which can have privacy or confidentiality issues.
Use the signature function with your contact details, so that people can quickly give you a call.
Send personal mail to the private address and not to the company address.
For sensitive contents you should use email encryption or at least protect the attachments with a password which you convey in a separate mail or a separate channel such as SMS over the mobile phone.

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Jul

18

Autodelition of trash-box

by Nicolas

Maintenance of your computer requires deletion of your trashbox for the entire computer as well as your email software.

This is routine work which can be automated. Use the settings of your computer or the software, so that the system automatically empties the trashbox after the period you defined (e.g. 4 weeks).

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Jul

14

Write and insist on clear email subjects

by Nicolas

Be as descriptive as possible in your email subject headers. It will point the attention to the reader and it will help to find the mail in your archive later again.

In case you have several different subjects you want to address to someone else you might consider splitting the mails and writing one separate mail for each subject. This applies especially when the subject are very different and not linked to each other.

When you receive emails without a subject line from others, call them and insist that they write a proper subject. With repeaters I sometimes return the mail informing them that I will not work on their mail until I receive a proper subject line.

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Jul

07

Using your email inbox as a to-do list

by Nicolas

You can use your email inbox as a to-do list by only keeping mails there where you still have an action to be taken or where it reminds you of someone else’s open action.

This only works if you quickly delete or transfer mails without open actions into other folders. Every person has a limit on how many mails you can manage in your inbox at a time. In case the number of mails in your inbox exceeds this number you probably have to invest some overtime to get back on track. Otherwise the danger of forgetting things and receiving reminders is very high.

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Jul

07

When did you last review your mailing lists?

by Nicolas

careful in the number of mailing lists you subscribe, since they can quickly fill your daily inbox.

1) Voluntary subscriptions:

Rather than subscribing a service which sends you mails everyday, you should use the RSS feed wherever possible. This will keep your inbox lean and you will check the RSS feed, whenever the time is suitable for you.

2) Someone else put you on the list:

In companies your are inevitably part of mailing lists that others create - sometimes even without your permission. You should be very selective here and in case it does not add value to you ask the sender to remove your name from the distribution list.

This is especially true when you are changing role or responsibility in your company. It might feel uncomfortable in the beginning but unsubscribing the mailing lists related to your previous role is a good step to let go and to focus on your new responsibility.

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Jul

06

Manage incoming cc mails

by Nicolas

Mails received as cc usually should not include any action items for you and therefore have lower priority by default. These mails should therefore not remain in your mailbox and distract your attention form important action items and information.

Since it is not possible nor desirable stopping other people from adding you to their mails on cc you have to manage them. One of the best ways is to create a separate folder for cc mails in your inbox and to set a rule in your email application that automatically forwards mails with your name in cc to this folder.

You can still read them but only after you have cleared the important items and you will only pay attention to cc mails once or twice a day.

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Jul

06

Deactivate incoming mail notification

by Nicolas

The default setting of most email applications is to notify you on new incoming mails immediately. These notifications often lead to an interruption of your current ask since you might check the detailed contents of the arriving mail. It is better to deactivate the instant notification option, so that get less interrupted and work more effectively.

It also avoids that your computer is connected to a projector in a meeting room whilst you are making a presentation and the entire audience can the see the notification of an incoming mail including sender and subject information. This can be an issue regarding confidentiality.

It might also be a good idea to change the standard view from your Outlook to the calendar instead of your mail. Once you had a look on the list of new mails it might be difficult to resist the temptation to start checking the mails.

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