Managing E Mail

E mail is great.  It really helps people communicate better.

E mail is terrible.  It takes over people's lives and keeps them on call 24/7.

Sadly, both statements are true.  E mail is a great communication device.  On the other hand, it can take over your life -- but only if you let it. 

Here are some common sense ideas I use to control my e mail, and avoid it controlling me...

E Mail Quick Tips

1. Learn your e mail program.  If you take the time to review the tutorial that came with it, you'll find that your e mail program has a lot of organizing and time saving features built in.  These features won't help you, however, if you don't know about or use them.
2. Develop your own system for dealing with e mail -- only you know how you work.  Figure out things like when it's the best time to check your messages, respond to messages and clear your inbox.  Create a system that works for you.
3. Make e mail your servant, not your master.  E mail is a great communication tool.  Make it work for you -- not the other way around.  Deal with your e mails when you are ready.  Don't be distracted from your work by trying to handle every e mail the moment it arrives.
4. Just like paper, handle each e mail only once -- open it, read it, act on it, respond to it, file it and then delete it.  (This one is easier said than done.)
5. E mail is great for some types of communication, and not so great for others.  Never send an e mail when a phone call or face to face chat is a better way of communicating.
6. Write in an e mail only what you are prepared to say face to face to the other person.  Never respond immediately to e mails that anger you.  Wait for a few hours or to the next day. 
7. Never use the bcc feature.  If you don't want the recipient to know you've copied someone else, you probably shouldn't be copying that person in the first place.
8. Beware of viruses.  Don't open attachments that come with e mails from people you don't know and/or have a subject line about which you normally don't get e mails.

I hope you find these quick tips useful.  That's it for today.  Thanks for reading.  Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense advice.

I'll see you around the web, and at Alex's Lemonade Stand.

Bud

PS What have YOU done for your career today?

Comments

[Carl Bromley]

Bud, Thanks for more common sense. I disagree with #7 (never use BCC) and will expand on the three occasions I use it:

#1: When sending a general notice to everyone in my address book, like "My email has changed" or "Here's something I think is important for everyone to know". When others use the regular cc feature, spammers seem to always find a way to harvest every email address listed. Voila, your friends get more spam and you were only trying to help.

#2: When using email as a sounding board. Example: A year ago or so, I proposed a county-wide advisory panel, members of which our County Commissioners would be able to access for opinions, hard data, and strategy. While the names would be meaningless to a commissioner, our advisors DO want to know what is going on. Easy answer: bcc.

[Carl Bromley]

#3 as promised:

When I am preparing an email to be shared primarily in its printed-out version, keeping the "noise" to a minimum helps. Ten or twenty cc's at the top can be distracting from the message you want to share, plus it often puts the real "message" on page two or three.

T

[Bud Bilanich]

Carl:
Thanks for your thoughts on the bcc feature. I agree with your suggestions.
In my post, I was suggesting that people should not use the bcc feature in a harmful way. For example, I have seen cases where people will send an e mail to an individual complaining about something he or she did -- and send a bcc to that person's boss. I think this type of behavior is unethical and cowardly.
Unfortunately, the bcc feature is used this way all too often. That's the type of use of the bcc feature I meant when I suggested that people should not send bcc's in my blog post.
You have suggested some very appropriate uses for the bcc feature. I think it is fine to use the feature in the ways you suggest. Also, you have cleared up any potential misunderstandings that could arise from the blanket statement on the bcc feature I made in my post. Thanks for your feedback.
Bud

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