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Time Management By E-mailMany business analysts hail e-mail as the communications tool of the century. It allows people to share information almost instantaneously; better yet, the costs are minimal. There are others, however, who look beyond the convenience and instead examine the productivity lost by workers who have poor e-mail management skills. It is a common problem in the workplace, and one that this article hopes to combat. There are two e-mail tasks that arguably waste the most time of people at work. The first is handling spam, those unsolicited and unwanted messages that come to you with offers of get-rich schemes, low mortgage rates, or anatomical enhancements. Many businesspeople admit that they spend more of their e-mail time deleting time than getting things done. Fighting spam requires vigilance. The first part of said vigilance is prevention: never give out your e-mail address unless absolutely necessary. Set up a free e-mail address to use for online registrations and newsletters; give your business address only to clients and colleagues. If your contact information is listed anywhere online, ensure that the responsible webmaster takes steps to hide your e-mail address from web crawlers. The second part of your vigilance is avoidance. Make use of any spam controls and message filters that your e-mail applications offer. Report spam to your systems administrator; in many cases they can block the domain of origination from future offenses. The other way that people often waste time unnecessarily is seeking specific messages in a disorganized Inbox. If the message cannot be found, they must ask for it to be re-sent, meaning that it could be days of delay or the information might not come at all. As you might have guessed, there is a better way. Use folders and sub-folders to organize your messages appropriately. Sort your Inbox and keep it at less than, say, 20 unsorted messages. Mark important messages with reply-to or priority flags. When searching for something, used the "advanced find" features of your e-mail client to narrow the search field and minimize results. Most e-mail clients such as MS Outlook have all of these features built-in, yet they are rarely used. At work, e-mail can be a convenient tool or a productivity drain, but rarely both. Taking steps to eliminate junk e-mail and organize your messages will keep you ahead of the game. |
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Copyright 2006 by Erudite Systems, Inc. |
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