BETTER AT WORK: Can We Be Productive with Less Email?

Once I did a time management exercise and tracked all the things I spent my time doing over a week, I discovered that I spent several hours per day reading through, organizing, deleting, and replying to email. In fact, email is a huge part of the daily routine of many office professionals. In fact, a study estimated that by 2019, 246 billion emails will be sent every day. Spending time on email means less time actually working and getting things done, planning, creating, building relationships with co-workers and clients, mentoring, volunteering, and ultimately hours that could be spent with family and friends. Let’s face the truth: Your life is being affected in a big way by email. The modern way of working should be more efficient than that. What can be done?

Here are a few ideas:

1) Use Email Etiquette. We all have heard it before but many still don’t follow the basic rules. Here is a quick refresher. One well-written email can reduce the number of replies if communication is clear, to begin with.

2) Use Instant Messaging (IM) tools for work. Many companies are integrating IM tools such as Slack, Google Hangouts, or Skype, into daily operations. You can get a lot more done via a quick IM than multiple emails.