There was a time, not long ago, when e-mail was hailed as great step forward in improving our efficiency on the job. Now, most of us are struggling to avoid being overloaded with messages.
“We’re like frazzled lab rats, being poked and prodded and beeped and pinged,” declares Maggie Jackson, author of “Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and The Coming Dark Age.”
You can buy a copy of Distracted from Amazon.com, just click here.
The average worker receives 200 e-mails a day.
Productivity gurus recommend a number of steps to manage the overflow. Here are the eight steps that make the most sense to me.
1. Don’t check e-mail first thing in the morning. Go there no more than twice a day. Make the last stop a short time before you wrap up the day to be sure you not missing an urgency.
2. Propose solutions/answers rather than ask questions.
3. Unsubscribe to newsletters and other lists that you never read.
4. Send fewer e-mails, only the essential ones. Make them shorter. Avoid computer-speak; abide by the rules of good grammar, punctuation and spelling.
5. Separate business from personal messages. Deal with business matters during the day; personal during off hours.
6. Don’t share your e-mail address with any and everyone.
7. Send “carbon copies” only to those who need to know.
8. Be sure you are utilizing “white lists” and other barriers to spam.
I wish you career success!!!
Ramon Greenwood, Head Career Coach
Common Sense At Work
Great tips, Ramon! I’d also suggest talking about email overload at the office with your manager, colleagues or team. Since our culture of distraction is both an individual and collective social problem, we need to put these issues on the table and talk seriously about how we can find focus again at work. For instance, try talking about split-focus at meetings. If everyone has one eye on a gadget, no one’s really focusing on a presenter or on the subject at hand. How can we brainstorm and innovate under such conditions?