Be Sane and Sensible – Delete E-mail Early and Often
How about this (and see if it doesn’t ring true for you): For the average professional, at least ½ (i.e., 50%) of what comes into your email inbox is immediately delete-able. (new word, I think). So, using that statistic, take careful note of the ideas in this article.
When you open your email (only limited number of times each day), have in your head that you are probably going to quickly delete at least 50% of them. Some, you can delete without even having to open them (ads, spam, silly things that people send that you could care less about, and so forth). Those are the easiest ones and you can just highlight those and hit delete. If you want to permanently delete, then most email programs allow you to hold down the Shift key and hit delete and then the items don’t even show up in your “deleted items” folder. But either way, press delete.
Now, when you actually begin to open your emails for real processing, you are going to have ones that you can delete just as soon as you see what they are. Several examples below:
* You’ve been cc’d or bcc’d on something that is not even pertinent to you. As soon as you make this determination, you delete the item.
* You receive emails that are announcements about upcoming events that either you’re not interested in, or that as soon as you look at your calendar, realize that you can’t attend. If no reply is required, just delete. If a reply is required, reply and then delete!
* You get a newsletter, information about something that you’ve subscribed to or requested, but you know you are now so far behind that the likelihood of getting this newsletter, special report, white paper, or other document read is slim to none. JUST DELETE IT. You’re a grown up…you get to choose!
* You receive mass emails that appear to be from someone way up in the organization (like a president, CFO, or the like) and in reality, it’s an announcement about a building being closed for maintenance. If it’s a building you’ve never been in, couldn’t find if you were looking for it, and don’t plan to be traveling to in the next few weeks, just delete the email.
Now, what about the emails that you need to ‘do something’ about. Can some of them still be deleted. YES. For example,
* You open the email and it’s something that answers a question you had, but no further action is required – and so you just delete (after writing down the info if it’s something you’ll need later).
* You open an email and the location for an upcoming meeting is included, which hadn’t been included in the last email. You either make note of that location in your calendar (paper or digital) and THEN YOU DELETE IT. There’s no need, once you’ve captured the information you need from an email to keep it.
The list goes on and on about what is delete-able. Remember, much of it can be deleted almost immediately, and quite a bit of the rest of it as soon as you’ve garnered what you needed from the email. As the title to the article suggests, delete early and often. Keep your email practices sane and sensible.
(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do. Sound interesting? It is!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meggin_McIntosh
Originally posted 2009-11-11 12:27:51. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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General Patton reportedly once said: “Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country. He won a war by making the other SOB die for *his* country.”
It’s good to delete email, but it’s even better to make the *other* guy delete the email
How do you do this? By offering a simple reply followed by immediate deletion. This puts an email in somebody else’s inbox, which—if you’ve done your job right—gets deleted immediately.
For example, if someone sends you confirmation details for a meeting request, REPLY to confirm that you will or will not be there. If someone sends you a piece of relevant information, record that in the appropriate system and REPLY to say you received it. If someone copies you on a conversation that doesn’t involve you, REPLY to let them know that you’re not actually connected to that project. Then delete the message!
By putting the onus of email deletion onto someone else, you place the finality of the conversation in their hands. This encourages senders to be more precise in their messages, because they will learn that you will ALWAYS reply to messages that have any loose ends or could be reasonably confirmed. It also inspires everyone to add the text “no need to reply” to outgoing messages.
Replying, then deleting reinforces your memory of the conversation more than just deletion. We’ve all gone on a deleting spree and then had to hunt through the trash for a missing message. If someone asks you “did you get that message,” you’re more likely to remember if you wrote a one sentence reply. And of course, people are much less likely to ask that question if you did reply!
Replying also moves all conversations to one master archive: The Sent Items folder. Now, anything you’ve ever talked about with someone is saved there. If someone sends you a crucial password and you are away from your own computer, you can log into your Sent Items folder from practically anywhere in the world to search for this information.
More on email from my personal blog at Messengers of Productivity, or on productivity at our corporate site Slaughter Development
@robbyslaughter