Faster, Fewer, Better Emails

Manage the Volume, Reduce the Stress, Love the Results

Dianna Booher

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781523085125
• eBook ISBN: 9781523085149
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

"Will open your eyes to a whole new way of thinking about email—its purposes, structure, improper uses, security risks, and productivity strategies."  —Marshall Goldsmith, #1  New York Times-bestselling  author 
 
Today, most business writing is email writing. We handle even our most important customer transactions, internal operations, and supplier partnerships solely by email.
 
Yet many of us still struggle to write emails that get results. And we often are so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails that we feel as though we're in email jail!
 
How we handle email has a large impact on the trajectory of our career. Emails can build or destroy credibility, clarify or confuse situations for our coworkers and customers, and reduce or increase security risks and legal liabilities. This book will help you master your emails and stand out as a clear, credible communicator. After all, clear, credible communicators become leaders in every industry.
 
With more than three decades of experience analyzing emails across various industries for corporate clients, Dianna Booher offers guidance on how to identify and stop email clutter so you can increase productivity while improving communication flow. In this book, you will learn how to:
 

• Compose actionable emails quickly by following Booher's philosophy of Think First, Draft Fast, and Edit Last 
• Write concise emails that get read so you get a quick response
• Organize a commonsense file storage system that helps you find documents and emails quickly to attach and send
• Present a professional image when you email prospects, customers, and coworkers
• Be aware of legal liabilities and security risks as you send and receive email

CHAPTER 1


Twelve Strategies to Cut the Clutter

Email is familiar. It’s comfortable. It’s easy to use. But it might just be the biggest killer of time and productivity in the office today.

— RYAN HOLMES, founder and CEO of Hootsuite

Email is a system that delivers other people’s priorities to your attention. It’s up to you to decide when that priority should be managed into your world. It’s not the other way around.

— CHRIS BROGAN, author, marketing consultant, and social media expert

If you’ve ever tried to move your belongings into a closet or garage previously used by someone else, you understand this principle: Get rid of all the items that served someone else’s purpose before you reload that space. You’ll typically sort the previous owner’s junk into piles: garbage, donate, sell.

Look at your email box the same way: Over the years, you may have let it become a collection of junk serving everyone’s purposes but yours. And your own purposes may have changed over time as your job has changed. So cutting your email clutter can be the easiest way to carve away a big chunk of wasted time.

In the earlier mentioned Booher’s University of Northern Colorado (UNC) survey, a whopping 69 percent of the participants identified clutter as their biggest email problem. More specifically, 34 percent identified “volume” as their number-one email irritant. Other clutter problems included irrelevant emails and redundant emails.

Once you set your mind to the idea of freeing your time, decluttering goes quickly. These twelve basic strategies will help you.

Strategy 1: STOP USING EMAIL FOR TASKS OTHER SOFTWARE HANDLES MORE APPROPRIATELY

When email first came into use, it was the tool of choice for everything: scheduling meetings and appointments, collaborating on projects, reviewing draft documents, and so forth. Today, other software does all these tasks more productively.

Take, for example, the process of scheduling an appointment by email. You can do it the nonproductive way—with five back-and-forth emails:

John,

I’d like to discuss this further. How about a call sometime in the next couple of weeks?

Maria

Maria,

Sounds good. I’m traveling Wed–Thurs, but will be in the office Friday. Want to touch base then?

John

John,

What time Friday works for you? I’m available for a call 9–11:00 or 3:00–5:00.

Maria

Maria,

Have a doctor’s appointment in the morning.

Let’s make it 3:00. Which number shall I call?

John

555-9002

Thanks. Talk soon.

Maria

By contrast, you could use a calendaring software program that would require two actions. Someone sends the calendar appointment request with a suggested time. The recipient either confirms or edits the response to an acceptable appointment time. (Or, if both parties are on the same team and use the same operating system or calendar program, they can just ask the automated assistant to find an empty spot on both calendars and schedule the call.)

Another example of tasks better handled by software other than email is project management. When you’re collaborating with coworkers on a team project, obviously you’ll be planning, commenting, and giving and receiving feedback and information. According to the UNC survey, fully 62 percent of the respondents still use email more than half of the time to collaborate with their colleagues on projects.

Some of this back-and-forth involving tasks, feedback, and timelines can be handled more easily with project management software rather than email (software like Microsoft Project, Basecamp, Asana, Workzone, or Smartsheet). With such software, your project tasks and related feedback, updates, and images can be added into a “running log” that everyone involved can access and add to, keeping related items and comments all together in one place.

Inappropriate tools clutter and slow your progress.

Strategy 2: STOP USING YOUR INBOX FOR STORAGE

When emails that require action hit their inbox, some people leave them there as reminders of what they need to do—later.

A better plan: If you’re using Microsoft’s Outlook email, you can simply pull that email over and drop it onto your to-do task pane on the appropriate date for follow-up. Or use the shortcut keys in Outlook to add an item to your tasks. If you’re using a different email system, make a manual calendar note—even a note on a paper calendar—of what to do when. Then file the email along with the appropriate contact or project. (See tips in chapter 5, “Organizing Folders and Files.”)

Other “storage” clutter results from indecisiveness. Important emails arrive that get attention—but puzzle you because you don’t know where best to file them. So they remain in your inbox for days, creating clutter while you decide where to put them for safekeeping. Then, every so often, you have to reread them to remember the pending action and details, wasting time again.

Read your email ONLY once. Think. Decide. Do. Either delete, reply, forward to someone else to handle, or schedule for later action and file it.

Strategy 3: ASK TEAM MEMBERS TO STOP HITTING “REPLY ALL” AND STOP DOING SO YOURSELF

REPLY ALL can clutter your inbox quickly. Instead, send your congratulatory comment directly to the person who deserves the kudos. Offer thanks directly to the person or team who helped you. Turn down the invitation only to the appropriate person. Why clog up seventeen other inboxes, only to have all seventeen of the recipients echo back to you?

A good rule of thumb on the REPLY ALL feature: Is your response helpful to all the others on the distribution list? If not, fly solo. Granted, changing the culture can be difficult. But aim to set the example.

Strategy 4: STOP HANGING ON AND PILING ON WITH MEANINGLESS RESPONSES

You may have caught yourself in the habit of hanging on, wondering where to stop meaningless messages, such as in this back-and-forth series:

Draft report attached.

Ok. Thanks.

You’re welcome. Let me know when finished.

Will do. Probably Thursday.

That works.

Maybe sooner.

Fine. No problem.

Enough already! Just stop. Yes, these emails are short. Granted, they don’t take much time to write or read. But that’s not the point. They clutter. They break your focus. They distract you from more important thinking and doing.

Another clutter practice: “Piling on.” Francesca sends out a summary report for the quarter, giving her team a chance to review it before she sends it up the ladder to the executive management team. Seventeen responses flood your inbox: “Looks good.” “Sounds great.” “Perfect.” “Thanks for this.” “Great summary.” “Nice job.” “Well done.” “Nothing to add.” “You’ve covered it!”

Vince emails the office to say he’s sick and not coming in to work. Five emails hit your inbox in the next two hours: “Sorry you’re sick.” “Feel better soon.” “Got you covered, ole man!” “Hope it’s not the flu. Drink, drink, drink—but lay off the hard stuff!” “Thanks for staying home and not exposing the rest of us!”

Distractions, distractions, distractions as they pop into your inbox. Sure, such emails may build camaraderie—but they can irritate and overwhelm you on a busy day.

Help others break the routine habit of piling on. As the sender, state in your email: “I’m enclosing the quarterly report for your review before I forward it to the executive team Friday. If you have anything to add or see any corrections to be made, reply to me directly. Otherwise, no reply or action is necessary.”

Strategy 5: ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT AND RESPOND WITH YOUR PLAN

When someone requests action or information from you and you can’t act or provide that information right away (because it isn’t yet available, it will take an unusually long time to prepare, or you’re waiting on someone else to comply), acknowledge the request and let the requester know when you expect to be able to respond fully.

Otherwise, the sender is left wondering if you received the original email. Quite likely, you’ll get another reminder. Or worse, you’ll get no reminder at all, and they’ll assume you took the requested action. Later, you’ll both be in for a nasty surprise.

Yes, even in this day of technological miracles, emails still do go astray before reaching the intended reader. They get routed to a junk folder, trash, or never-never-land. Your quick acknowledgment “Got it. Will send after the numbers become available on Sep 20” puts the reader’s mind at ease, allows them to plan, and prevents follow-up reminders from them.

(Yes, you can send emails with “receipt requested,” but I don’t recommend it. Many people resent that tactic, thinking you’re subtly communicating, “I don’t trust you so I’m covering my bases.”)

Just as a side note here, an astonishing number of administrative assistants send and respond to emails under their boss’s name. Many report that they’re allowed to delete emails before their boss even sees them. So it’s understandable that people fear you did not actually see an important email and give direction or make a decision about it.

Acknowledging receipt will eliminate a great many reminder and follow-up emails. Just a simple “Got it. Will get back to you shortly” keeps the sender from wondering, Did the email arrive? Can she provide that information before this project is due? Is he or is he not willing to make the referral?

Ask typical readers why they don’t respond on a timely basis with an answer or information, and they’ll likely give one of these reasons for the delay.

• “I didn’t know you needed it by (fill in the date).”

• “I didn’t know it was urgent.”

• “I’ve been busy on other priorities. I was planning to get to it in the next few days.”

• “I’ve been trying to figure out what you wanted.”

As a writer, instead of flooding inboxes with reminders and follow-ups and wasting your time to draft them, why not aim to remove the reasons from the outset?

• If you have a deadline for response, state it specifically and clearly.

• Bold print or uppercase the date and place it in a separate paragraph so that it gets attention. If appropriate, add the due date to your subject line.

• Place your request up front, not buried at the end of your email. (See the MADE Format™ on page 27 for the appropriate email structure.)

• If response by a specific date is urgent, say so and explain why in terms of benefits or consequences to the reader. (“. . . by Oct 2 so that you’ll receive reimbursement within 5 days. If your information is not submitted by that date, reimbursement may be delayed up to 60 days.”)

• Make the necessary response as simple as possible. Can you send a template, form, model, or another resource to help the reader provide the information?

• Include a direct phone number, email address, or link to get more information or help in sending what you want.

• Phrase questions specifically if you expect clear answers. For example, a vague series of questions will likely get a wishy-washy, rambling response—if some are not overlooked altogether.

Robert,

What are your thoughts about doing a client survey? Other firms have done one simply for marketing purposes, i.e., to let clients know about new service offerings. Some firms survey clients just to identify needs or satisfaction levels. Survey all? Some? Ideas?

Michaela

You will get a far better response with a list of specific questions.

Robert,

We are considering a client survey to identify current satisfaction levels. But there are other reasons, of course, for such surveys, such as introducing services or reminding clients of services we offer. What are your thoughts on the survey idea please?

— In your mind, what should be the primary goal for our survey?

— Should w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Twelve Strategies to Cut the Clutter
• Chapter 2. Think First to Include the Right Information for the Right People
• Chapter 3. Draft Fast to Be Productive
• Chapter 4. Edit Last for Clarity, Conciseness, Grammar, and Style
• Chapter 5. Organize Folders and Files to Save and Send Information
• Chapter 6. Protect Yourself and Your Organization
• Chapter 7. Maintain Your Professional Reputation
• Your Next Steps
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Author
• How to Work with Dianna Booher and Booher Research Institute
• For More Information