Reducing the eMail Firehose

In a recent discussion with a colleague he recommended that I read the book “The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You”. This book has a humorous approach to explaining what we all know but are not able to do much about: eMail is wasting not hours but weeks of each of our productivity time per year. The techniques in this book seem logical so I am going to use them in 2012.

As such you will see the following changes in the email you receive from me:

• the subject line will be formatted in this way:
  ACTION: descriptive subject (-eom)
• ACTION will be one of:
  
  • ACTION
  • INFO
  • REQUEST
  • CONFIRMED – I have completed the subject action
  • DELIVERY – this email contains a response to a request you have made
• The subject will be descriptive of the contents and never blank
• If “-eom” is included then the complete intelligence of the email is in the subject and you don’t need to open the email. Just read the subject line.
• The body will normally have 4 sections (this may take a while to work into):
  
  • Brief greeting
  • ACTION: context, specific action, purpose and response time
  • BACKGROUND: clear, concise and relevant background.
  • CLOSE: next steps, signature block

Additionally, I’ll reduce the number of “thank you” email. If sent it will more than likely be just a brief note with “-eom” in the subject line. If your email does not require a reply then it’s more likely that there won’t be a reply at all ... thereby reducing the amount of email you receive. Know that I appreciate each value-added email received.

This information will be revised as the new method develops.  Check back here if you have any questions  OR send me a “REQUEST:”  email.   

We would all benefit if each of us applied some simple email structure to this important communication tool. 
I highly recommend that you read “The Hamster Revolution …” and consider it for your own email process.