If you want to boost your team’s productivity, then your next meeting should be about email. Email is a valuable tool but also one that takes up a lot of time.
Maybe too much of it. As we’ve discussed before, researchers have found the average person receives about 75 messages a day and spends more than a quarter of the day answering them. It’s like a tax on your productivity.
Often, most of these emails come from within your organization. For this reason, it’s a good idea to gather your team or the entire organization and set some ground rules about email.
Usually, this discussion can reduce the amount of messages produced.
This is not a case of people using a tool a right or wrong way. Most of us have never talked about how to use email. We all started using it one day, with minimal supervision. As a result, you’ve probably picked up a few bad habits.
The Reply All Email
Ever feel like you have to reply to every group message you receive, even if there is no need to reply? This can make others feel they also need to acknowledge their receipt of the email. The resulting mass replies can quickly fill up an inbox.
Your team should discuss potentially adding a do not reply to this message to emails that are not urgent and not require further discussion. That way, no one will feel nervous about not responding.
Set Email Boundaries
Your group should also talk about whether people are expected to read and respond to messages 24 hours a day. For some, it’s second nature. Others will see it as an intrusion into personal lives. The two philosophies will usually come in conflict.
Set some boundaries and remind your eager message senders that they can always set the send time for later or save the message as a draft until business hours.
These are just two examples of electronic communication issues you should define. While you may approach the discussion feeling it is unnecessary, getting these policies set can free up your productive time. Remember, every minute counts.
