Change the way you mail

Author PAUL JOHNSON describes how we can learn to E-mail to live,not live to E-mail Face-to-face communication involves language, facial and verbal expression, vocal intonation, body language, eye contact, physical composure, touch, smell and more. It allows unambiguous communication. Now change the method of communication and watch how these facets begin to fade. As each one vanishes, it takes away an element of clarity and starves the recipient of vital clues. Switch from face-to-face to telephone and, with it, you lose facial expression, body language, eye contact, physical-composure, touch and more. Beat the system Revert to written communication and you lose non-verbal expression and intonation. In effect, through the shift to writing, you reduce your communication toolkit from a strong portfolio of, say, ten items, to a weak toolkit of two based solely around the discipline of the written word. We have, in effect, an unskilled and largely untrained global e-mail workforce. This new technology has grown so fast as to ambush the office. We haven't fully noticed and all the usual office defences of training and operating protocols have not yet caught up. One important tip is to think about whether you need to e-mail in the first place. Your colleagues hold so much information about the business - its activities, its people, customers and general news that it pays to immerse yourself in your real-life context. In many cases, more than 50 per cent of e-mails are sent to people in the same office. The next time the e-mail system fails, use the time to go and speak to people about the issues you were just about to e-mail them on. Get out there and meet colleagues. Below are a few general rules for negotiating the e-mail quagmire. Alternatively, you could do as a reader commented on the Email Survival Guide website: 'I don't worry about most of my e-mails. I just wait until they - call me. Then you know they have a real issue for me to deal with.' Email: the new rules Mix communication tools, blending the electronic with the traditional. Your message will have more depth. be better regarded and, ultimately more successful. If we lose the ability to communicate face-to-face, then we might as well pack up now; it's over. If you don't need it, delete it. Remember why you need to keep information. Theoretically it's because you may need to refer back to the material. Not because you are paranoid or like to hoard. The strength of the delete button is the feeling of freedom it provides. You will remember most of what you save but forget most of what you delete. And with e-mail, you need to forget most things. Determine the categories you need to retain. Decide how long each category should be kept and then develop a mechanism to 'store and destroy'. Set dates for deletion against each category of data storage. Don't forget to 'spring clean'. Once every three months or more, review your e-mail and delete. Deletion should not be haphazard but programmed, planned and perfected. Try to eliminate being alerted to incoming e-mail. Plan your day and allot a certain amount of time to review incoming mails (looking over your inbox, sending brief responses and then allocating a date, time and duration to work on more complex responses). Then split that time into a 30:70 ratio in morning and afternoon sessions. Set up an 'Inbox Action' folder; with subfolders to denote the status of the messages therein. Typical subfolders could include: To Be Reviewed, Immediate Action, Action within 72 Hours, Action Scheduled and No Action - Return within 72 Hours. After each daily e-mail review, the Immediate Action box should always be empty. An experienced operator- can set their inbox to drop e-mails from 'important' individuals into an action folder and so are able to focus most of their attention on this correspondence. Prioritise and allocate review time to address 'To' messages first, with CC e-mails receiving attention only if time is available. In turn, try to send e-mails 'To' individuals rather than by 'CC'. A smaller distribution makes the point that the material is for each recipient's attention and there is a greater likelihood of a response. Edited by FIONA MACDONALD atmetro@ukmetro.co.uk

WILL A SLIMMING REGIME FOR YOUR BULGING INBOX TAKE A LOAD OF YOUR MIND? LISA SCOTT FINDS OUT The most miserable month of the year is almost over and it's pretty likely your resolutions are a distant memory. It's not too late to get back on the wagon - but instead of cutting out chocolate, why not reduce your information intake? E-mails and phone calls are said to be niaking us ill because they take up so much of our time. Such are the pressures of day-to-day life that Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahueman has found enjoyable activities - such as spending time with your children - are widely regarded as mere distractions.We're often overloaded with useless information and it's making us stressed and miserable. Seton Notes, a company that helps workers cope with e-mail management, believes the inbox is the biggest time waster at work.

METRO IS PUT TO THE TEST If you're particularly busy, Dr Seeley suggests a two- to four-hour break from your inbox (anything longer may make you more stressed). We put it to the test at Metro... James Ellis, Travel Editor: After an hour, I felt more stressed by not having access to e-mail. What if a story was breaking and I missed it? I'd just how many e-mails would I have to answer when the four-hour period was up? If you remain disciplined, you can keep your e-mail on and just not answer anything. Lisa Scott, Health Editor: The day before my switch-off, I felt panicky about going without my e-mail but I was surprised at how much work I got done in that time. I did look forward to turning it back on, though, to see if I had missed anything interesting - sad, I know. Kieran Meeke, Features Editor: Not having to deat with incoming ones made a real difference to the amount of work I could do. I was able to concentrate on finishing one thing, rather than being pulled back and forth by a number of issues.

Spam Filtered Staff spend up to 25 per cent of their time managing e-mail - and most of that is spent looking for lost e-mails or reading spam. A study by the University of the West of Scotland found that some workers check their messages up to 40 times a minute and, as a result, feel stressed, tired and unproductive. Timothy Ferriss, author of New York Times bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek, checks his e-mail only twice a day. He also went on a one- week inbox fast. 'Following a low- information diet was one of the best things I've ever done for my health and it's easily tripled my work performance,' he says. 'Once you stop drinking from the fire hose and can focus on output, the world changes. There's no more anxiety or the pressure to "keep up" or get left behind. Most information is irrelevant. Taking a short break from it makes you realise it has no positive effect on your life.' The thought of avoiding your inbox for a week might make you reach for the fags, but there are ways to manage your e-mail stress. Dr Monica Seeley of Mesmo Consultancy, a company that runs workshops on how to manage e-mail, says your first step to a lighter media diet is to turn off your instant messaging system. Ignore completely 'Alerts that tell us we have a new e-mail are disrupting our workflow. As a rule, ignore e- mails completely in the afternoon and when you do set aside time to read them, deal with them then - if you don't need them, delete them,' she says. 'Remember, you're responsible for the volume you receive and a lot of e-mails may be generated by you. Pick up the phone whenever you can.' Dr Seeley also suggests declaring 'e-mail bankruptcy' if you've been out of the office for more than a few days. 'When you - come back, instead of reading every e-mail, delete them all and send one out to your contacts saying: "If it is important, please resend",' she says. Some companies have opted to make Friday an e-mail-free zone. Having this before the weekend brings e-mail use down for the whole of the following week. 'Doing all of this will make you - much happier,' says Dr Seeley. 'Managing stress is about controlling the things we can and looking at ways to influence the things we can't.' www.metro.co.uk Edited by LISA SCOTT health@ukmetro.co.uk

See Also Sending Email,Attached Files,Data Security,The Prying Game,Drowning in a Sea of Spam