I'm not sure if this is a universal truth or not, but I suspect it is.
People can't manage their email.
This isn't a spam problem or tool problem. This is about people that don't understand how to deal with mail in a timely fashion and manage their time. I have seen people that proclaim proudly that they have 4,000 messages in their inbox with 1,000 unread items. It must make them feel important to be so popular?
It is time to take a stand. We must demand action.
Jeff Bogdan (a coworker) and I have been trying a new system. We basically compete with each other to keep our inbox as small as possible. We read mail several times a day and try to respond, file, or delete each mail as we read it. The goal - less that 20 messages in your inbox.
It's amazing - Once you get your email under control the frustration you feel when someone isn't responsive to your mail is even worse. We are hoping that we can use shame and humiliation as a tool to convince others to follow our lead on agressively managing mail.
This is such a huge deal at a company like Microsoft. We communicate almost exclusively through email. It is not uncommon for people to get 200 mails a day, with some people toping at over 500. I'm sure that many other large companies out there are the same way. People get bogged down in mail, stop responding, and next thing you know you are always walking down to someone's office asking them to read you mail right away. Or, even worse, you start tagging every mail with a !
- Read mail several times a day (not continuosly, but also not only in the AM or PM)
- When reading mail try to respond, file, or delete the mail when you first read it. The goal is to touch each mail only once.
- Use Outlook (or whatever program is your favorite) to auto-file large mass mailing lists into folders so that they don't pile up in your inbox and hide important mails.
- Keep less than 20 mails in your inbox.
Next soapbox... Meeting etiquette, but i'll save that for later.