Mashable reports that 144.8 billion emails are sent each day. The Huffington Post reports that we spend an average of 28% of our work week reading, sorting and responding to emails. (They suggest we should stop doing that and use that time to watch a movie on Netflix.) The Radicati Group states the average office worker sends or receives 120 emails per day.
Whether you spend more or less time dealing with your emails than average, you are probably spending a significant portion of time trying to figure out some of these curious and perplexing items:
- Why were you copied on the email?
- What is the objective of the email?
- What does the sender of the email want/need from you?
- What does the content of the email have to do with the subject line?
- Is it worth your time to respond (or even read) the email?
- What is the downside of deleting or ignoring the email?
Don't get your hopes up: I don't have magic bullet answers to these 6 questions. However, I'm pretty certain I understand why you are asking them and why email is a form of communication that needs some serious rethinking. As they say, the first step in resolving a problem is realizing that there is one. Here are some of the basic problems with email.
Many topics would be better addressed in a phone call or face to face chat (especially if the addressee is sitting two desks away from you).
Many emails are sent for CYA. Enough said. (Not touching company politics with a ten foot pole today.)
Not enough thought is typically given to the subject line, resulting in the subject frequently having little to do with the objective or actual point of the email.
When responding, the subject line is very seldom altered to reflect an update, which makes it difficult to know whether subsequent emails are potential resolutions or additional question areas. (Of special note are emails for which the subject line remains unchanged but the content now focuses on completely new and different issues.)
Way too many people are copied on emails that are of no particular value to them, and the corollary is that way too many people hit Reply All with comments that pertain only to the sender.
I expect there are books and websites with email etiquette and email guidelines. Perhaps there are even email composition policies embedded in some company Intranet rules. For me, it's pretty simple:
If there are lots of numbers or other data, emails are a good way to communicate. (I think it's almost rude when someone telephones you and then starts spouting numbers and facts that you as the unwitting recipient must struggle to record.)
If there are numerous recipients who do need the information, email is a more efficient way to provide regular updates. Email is an efficient way to provide one-way communication and transfer straightforward information.
If the information or situation is the slight bit complicated or controversial, pick up the phone and have a conversation. Explain your position, ask for comment, engage in a dialogue, and resolve the problem or address the challenge real-time and with the added value of hearing the tone of voice. Dare I say that a face to face chat is wildly better in terms of actually resolving issues to everyone's satisfaction?
If you have something helpful to say in response to an email, say it efficiently. Use bullets or other symbols to make it easy for the reader to get your point. Re-read it for ease of understanding, spell check it with your own eyes as well as the spell-checker, and then edit it down to 50% of what you originally typed. It will be so much better.
If the email really and truly is not pertinent to you and what you do, it is not necessary to respond. You may want to move the message to that impossible-to-navigate archive folder you created, or if you're totally confident that deleting it won't make you wish a month from now that you had kept it, go ahead and confidently hit that delete button... you know.. the one that removes the email from your world but leaves its trace out in cyberspace for someone else to stumble over years from now.
Let's all do our best to ensure that the 28% of our work week that has been spent on dealing with emails is better spent dealing with our clients and our colleagues. Now, if I could just locate that email with all those great suggestions for cleaning up my hard drive....
