![The three large pyramids at Giza, from left to right: Menkaure, Khafre, Khufu. The three large pyramids at Giza, from left to right: Menkaure, Khafre, Khufu.](../images/giza-pyramids.png)
The three large pyramids at Giza, from left to right: Menkaure, Khafre, and Khufu. The "Great Pyramid" is at the far right. All are visible from low Earth orbit. See this image taken by an astronaut in 2003. Photo by David McEachan.
When we waste time with email because of our own actions, complaining bitterly about email doesn't make much sense. To get control of email, we have to change how we work with it. Here's Part II of a little catalog of ways to waste time with email. See "Email Antics: I," Point Lookout for December 17, 2003, and "Email Antics: III," Point Lookout for January 14, 2004, for more.
- Abuse the subject line
- Opening a new topic by replying to a message to get their address, you forget to alter (or don't bother to alter) the subject line.
- This makes searching for the topic confusing later on. Remember that the subject line is the most important part of the message.
- Leave the subject line blank
- Leaving the subject line blank forces recipients to read your message with little or no idea of what it's about. They can't order your message by priority; they have no context in mind when they start reading. If they get only a few messages per day, this is no problem, but if they get hundreds, as many of us now do, many will probably assign a low priority to your message. Maybe that's OK, maybe not.
- Check for new email too frequently
- Either bored or avoiding something difficult or distasteful, you decide to check email. If you're bored, read a good book instead, or get some exercise. If you're avoiding something, get it done — or ask for help. See "Help for Asking for Help," Point Lookout for December 10, 2003.
- Reply to nonurgent email immediately, just because it's easy
- Wasting time is OK,
but complaining bitterly
about what we ourselves
are doing isn't - See "Checking for new email too frequently." There's another possibility for this one: you need to feel like you're finishing something. In that case, try finishing a very tiny piece of something more important. See "Figuring Out What to Do First," Point Lookout for June 4, 2003.
- Check for new email automatically, instead of when you're interruptible
- Most email readers offer automatic inbox checking as an option. Turn it off. Right away. Take charge of your own interruptions. See "Time Management in a Hurry," Point Lookout for November 12, 2003.
- Reply without context
- Someone sends you a few paragraphs, including some questions, and you reply with "Not that I know of," but you don't include any part of the original message. This makes it difficult for the recipient to figure out what question your answer answers. Include enough context to make that clear.
- Reply with too much context
- When you reply, include a complete copy of the message you received. The next person after you does the same, and so on, until the message is so big that if bytes were rocks, you'd have a down payment on the Great Pyramid. Remove from your replies any portion of the sender's message that isn't relevant to your reply.
If you do some of these, and you'd like to stop, tack this list on your wall. Highlight the ones you want to avoid, and review it once in a while to see how you're doing. Be patient, expect lapses, and celebrate your victories. First issue in this series
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Are you so buried in email that you don't even have time to delete your spam? Do you miss important messages? So many of the problems we have with email are actually within our power to solve, if we just realize the consequences of our own actions. Read 101 Tips for Writing and Managing Email to learn how to make peace with your inbox. Order Now!
And if you have organizational responsibility, you can help transform the culture to make more effective use of email. You can reduce volume while you make content more valuable. You can discourage email flame wars and that blizzard of useless if well-intended messages from colleagues and subordinates. Read Where There's Smoke There's Email to learn how to make email more productive at the organizational scale — and less dangerous. Order Now!
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
The Hypothetical Trap
- Politicians know that answering hypothetical questions is dangerous, but it's equally dangerous for
managers and project managers to answer them in the project context. What's the problem? Why should
you be careful of the "What If?"
Mitigating Outsourcing Risks: I
- Outsourcing internal processes modifies the usual risk configuration of those processes, but it also
creates a special class of risks that are peculiar to the outsourcing relationship. What are some of
those risks and what can we do about them?
Risk Creep: I
- Risk creep is a term that describes the insidious and unrecognized increase in risk that occurs despite
our every effort to mitigate risk or avoid it altogether. What are the dominant sources of risk creep?
Way Too Much to Do
- You're good at your job — when you have enough time to do it. The problem is that so much comes
your way that you can't possibly attend to it all. Some things inevitably are missed or get short shrift.
If you don't change something soon, trouble is sure to arrive.
Internal Audits Without Pain
- If adhering to established procedures is part of your job, you probably experience occasional audits.
You can manage the pain of the experience by regarding audit preparation as part of the job. Because
it is. Here are some tips for navigating audits.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Writing and Managing Email for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 3: Additive bias…or Not: II
- Additive bias is a cognitive bias that many believe contributes to bloat of commercial products. When we change products to make them more capable, additive bias might not play a role, because economic considerations sometimes favor additive approaches. Available here and by RSS on July 3.
And on July 10: On Delegating Accountability: I
- As the saying goes, "You can't delegate your own accountability." Despite wide knowledge of this aphorism, people try it from time to time, especially when overcome by the temptation of a high-risk decision. What can you delegate, and how can you do it? Available here and by RSS on July 10.
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