Chris Anderson has some great new rules for email - his email charter, that we should all sign up to. Over the last 20 years we've got sloppy with email. We don't seem to care how long our emails are, or how much information is sent to everyone in the original email. I wish more folks would sign up to the charter. Its makes me sad to think about just how much of our working week is wasted by responding to often unnecessary emails. I've highlighted the points here from the email charter. Nice and simple... :
1. Respect Recipients' Time
2. Short or Slow is not Rude
3. Celebrate Clarity
4. Quash Open-Ended Questions
5. Slash Surplus cc's
6. Tighten the Thread
7. Attack Attachments
8. Give these Gifts: EOM NNTR
9. Cut Contentless Responses
10. Disconnect!
The 3 principles I try to follow when dealing with my email inbox are:
Don't reply all if you don't need to
Use an auto delay for your response so that you never regret posting anything
Don't reply instantly. That's what the phone is for. It drives false expectation.
What are your email rules of engagement that helps you get to inbox zero and improve your productivity?
Image credit: Flickr
Eileen Brown is a social media consultant and author of Working The Crowd: Social Media Marketing for Business.