Contents
- Attention: Executives and Professionals - discover how to clear your intray quickly. Special Offer on the new RocketReader Professional.
- More Secrets of Reading and Managing Email including Email Netiquette here
- RocketReader Kids Version 3 out now
- Product Manuals - Now available for download
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More Secrets of Reading and Managing Email including Email Netiquette
Introduction
This is the second part of our series on reading and managing email.
Part 1, The Golden Secrets of Reading and Managing Email, covered
day-to-day handling of email and management of your inbox. Click here
to read Part 1.
Managing the Email Dragon
Whilst there has been a growth in alternative forms of communication
such as text and instant messaging, blogging and social networking,
email is still widely used, particularly in the business community.
Email allows people to receive communication and respond in their own
time. This is particularly important in today's global economy where
the sender and recipient may be operating in different time zones. It
is also more formal than instant messaging, blogging and social
network communications. Formality is generally required when
communicating with clients and in business to business communications.
Most
information workers spend more than one and half hours per day (over
20% of work time) dealing with email (Information Worker Productivity
Institute Research). Office workers may receive and send 50 to 250
messages a day. An estimated six trillion business email messages were
sent by business users in 2006 (Ferris Research).
Are you in control of your in-box? Or, does your in-box
control you? Are you scared of your in-box? Scared of the beast? Are
you losing sleep worrying about you in-box?
So, how do you manage your email and avoid information overload
and reduce stress? How do you control your in-box? How do you tame the
beast? Time Batching
Many workers check their email multiple times a day. Some workers check
every few minutes. In such cases, email is a distraction and interrupts
work flow and productivity. Indeed, field trials for a Hewlett- Packard
study found that there was a ten point fall in IQ of workers distracted
by email. This is equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep. Batching email is more effective than dealing with emails as and when
they are received. You are not constantly interrupted and do not waste
time switching from one task to another. If you are distracted by the
pop-up advising you that a new email has been received, turn the email
notification feature off.
What is the optimal way to handle email? Allocate set times to handle
your email each day.
Do not look at it until then. Half past eleven in the morning is a
good time to deal with your overnight email. Why? You get to spend a
few solid hours focusing on your work early in the day. You can work without
having to worry about the demands raised by your overnight email. Also,
set aside a time in the late afternoon to process any email received
during the day. Action Batching
Whenever possible, action an email as soon as you have read it. If the
task should be performed by someone else, forward the email to them
straight away and delegate the task to them. Enter calendar dates
immediately and arrange any necessary meetings straight away. This
saves you from having to search for and read the email again. If you cannot respond to an email immediately, advise the recipient
that you have received the email and indicate when they can expect a
response. Then transfer this task to your 'To Do' list, so it doesn't get overlooked.
If you receive email from multiple senders requiring the same or a
similar response, batch these tasks and perform them together to save
time. Use templates and standard text which you can cut and paste and
vary as required to save time. Preset your address and contact details
to appear on all outgoing email.
Be Exact about the Subject
Sloppy email subjects may be overlooked, confused with spam and
result in missed meetings and wasted time. Therefore, it is essential
that you are specific about the subject of the email. Having a concise
description is also good email etiquette. The subject should be clear
and meaningful. The subject matter should identify any action required
and by whom, when and where (if appropriate). For example:-
Subject: Attn: Synergy project team - Project review meeting April 5 3 pm Rm 2
This assists the recipient to prioritize the email, make
calendar entries and also delineates the email from any spam received.
Below are some further example email subjects, good and bad:
| Good | Bad |
|---|
| CRC meeting: May 5 2 pm Boardroom | meet |
|
Where is the Dexter Inc dossier? | QUESTION |
| J Aldus' travel plans to CA for your approval by Feb 28 |
For your approval |
| Good Inc report required by 3 pm May 7 | When will it be ready? |
| Reminder: All Staff - Meeting today May 14 1 pm Rm 1 | To all staff |
Addressing Correctly
Knowing how to properly send, forward and exchange information by email is essential for courtesy, work flow and legal reasons.
Use the To field to send an email to the intended recipient of
the message. To indicates that action is required by the recipient.
Cc stands for carbon copy. Use Cc if you want to inform a third
party that the email has been sent to the intended recipient but you do
not expect the third party to reply or act. For example, if you wish to
advise Ryan (your supervisor) that you have emailed John (your work
colleague) and you want John to see that Ryan has been notified.
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Bcc stands for blind carbon copy. Bcc is used to advise a third
party of the email without disclosing to the intended recipient that
the email has also been sent to the third party. For example, if you wish to advise Ryan that you have emailed John and you don't want John to see that you have notified Ryan.
Bcc can also used to send a message to multiple parties without
disclosing the other recipients or their email addresses. You can do
this in two ways:
- Addressing a message to yourself and filling in the intended recipients in the Bcc field.
- Creating a mailing list. An intended recipient will receive
an email addressed to them but will be unable to see the emails of the
other recipients.
Bcc is a useful tool for maintaining privacy of email addresses.
With Bcc recipients cannot see the email address of the other email
recipients. With To and Cc all recipients can see the email addresses
of recipients in the To and Cc fields.
Be savvy and exercise some caution before clicking on that send button.
Daniel clicked on the wrong mailing list when sending an email and
advised everybody in a large government department that he was taking
annual leave on certain dates. Daniel subsequently sent another email
recalling his earlier email. Double check that you have selected the intended recipient or
mailing list and the right fields (To, Cc, Bcc) before clicking the
send button. Train yourself as to how your email software management
package (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird) implements terms such as Bcc. Doing
so may save you considerable embarrassment and, importantly, respect
privacy obligations.
Email Netiquette
What is netiquette? Netiquette is the conventions of courtesy and
conduct observed on the internet. Rules of conduct on the internet vary
depending on the forum or the mode of communication. Email has its own
netiquette. Failure to follow netiquette may irritate and offend. In
some instances by breaching netiquette you may also breach the law and
jeopardize your employment.
Posting
Posting styles include top-posting (replying above the original
email), bottom-posting (replying below the original email) or
interleaved posting (replying under each segment in the original
email).
Top posting is the most common form used in business email
correspondence and the most convenient. This means that the recipient
can easily see the latest response and any new correspondent included
in the discussion can pick up the thread or history of the discussion.
Bottom posting is inconvenient and may mean your reply is missed, if
the receiver fails to scroll down. Interleaved posting is sometimes
used in email and can be useful. For example, when responding to a
series of questions, it is easy to reply under each question.
Dos and Don'ts of Email
- Before contacting someone by email check whether you need
permission to do so. Emailing without permission is illegal in many
jurisdictions.
- For business, use a proper business account (e.g. abc@xyzcompany.com) rather than a free account (e.g. funnyface63@yahoo.com).
- Do not use a business email account for personal correspondence. Business email accounts may be monitored by your company.
- Don't send banned information e.g. offensive material, chain letters etc.
- With an email addressed to multiple recipients, only send your reply to the people who need to see your reply.
- Don't send large attachments by email unless you have permission or it is standard practice.
- Avoid typing entirely in uppercase, as this signifies shouting and can be considered rude.
- Enter a concise description of the topic of the email in the subject field.
- If you can't answer an email straight away, let the sender know the email has been received and indicate when you will respond.
- If you don't receive a reply to an email where a response is
expected, follow up with a further email within two to five business
days. Your original email may have been intercepted or overlooked.
- Use Bcc when sending email to multiple recipients to maintain the privacy of their email addresses.
Time Wasters
People sometimes send an email because they don't want to make a
decision. If they are clearly avoiding their responsibilities, respond
briefly, assuring them that they are capable of making the decision.
People also try to conduct meetings by email. This involves many emails
and parties and is inefficient. Organize a meeting with a proper
agenda, instead.
Aggressive Email
 People
may send aggressive email, when they are angry. This is an instance of
flaming (hostile behavior on the internet). If an email makes you
angry, do not respond straight away. Take time to consider whether you
can ignore the email or should telephone or respond politely by email.
Aggressive email devours time and energy, so develop an awareness of
suitable email tone. Use correct grammar and punctuation. How formal
you are will depend on how well you know the person with whom you are
communicating and the level of formality they adopt in their
communications with you.
Further Information
If you would like to read further, please consult the reference section below or do some quick searching on the internet.
References
- Network Working Group. (1995) RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines Retrieved August 15th 2007 from http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855
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Product Manuals
Instruction Manuals are now downloadable from here for the following RocketReader products: RocketReader RocketReader Vocab RocketReader Kids RocketReader eBook Classic Collection
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