Keep emails short—really short. Realize that being brief isn’t rude; it’s a
sign of respect for the other person’s time (in addition to your own).
There is even a movement that suggests we consider email messages to be
similar to text messages. The website five.sentenc.es suggests you limit all your
emails to five sentences or fewer and then add a footer message that directs
people to the website for an explanation.
In Their Own Words… Why use 100 words when 10 words will do. Whether that is in an email, a report, a presentation, or a pitch. Brevity can be powerful. –Naomi Simson,founder of RedBalloon, author of Live What You Love, and investor on Shark Tank Australia. Keep emails short and sweet. Over the years, I’ve trained myself to write three-sentence emails, leaving out the fluff and keeping only the most essential points. It saves my time and it saves the reader’s time. –Ryan Holmes is the founder and CEO of HootSuite. How to Get to Inbox Zero in Ten Minutes
My friend Christine has over 10,000 emails in her inbox, most of them unread!
Perhaps you can relate?
If this is the situation you find yourself in, you might want to declare email
bankruptcy and quickly start at “inbox zero” before applying the email
management steps in this chapter.
My suggestion is:
1.
Deal with all email that arrived within the last 48 hours.
2.
Create a folder called Old Emails.
3.
Move ALL of the emails sitting in your inbox into the Old Emails
folder.
4.
Voila, you’re starting fresh at inbox zero.
Is this sort of cheating? Maybe.
Couldn’t you just archive all your emails instead of creating a new folder?
Yes.
But why haven’t you previously deleted or archived or filed your emails?
Why are they sitting there to begin with? Most people tell me that they’re afraid
there is something valuable that they’ll never find again. They don’t seem to
trust the archive function or know how to use it. So a simple solution is to just
create your own labeled folder and move everything there. Enjoy!
How Does This Apply If You’re A(n)...
