Summary
If you’re like most people, you spend a lot of time looking for things, and a lot of time managing email. In fact, McKinsey found that the average worker spends 20% of their time looking for information, and 28% of their time managing email. While there is certainly some overlap there, those two uses of time likely take up a big chunk of your workday. Let’s dissect how people use email and discuss some strategies to cut down that time, and at the same time, improve the quality of messages you’re sending.
Working with email generally falls into these categories, and we’ll touch on some strategies for each of them:
- Drafting – Eliminate the unnecessary messages, automate the extremely repetitive ones, and expedite everything else.
- Reading – Touch things once, don’t let email distract you (4 D’s), and respond as necessary.
- Archiving – Use a folder system that works for you and keep that inbox clean (and use macros to speed this up!).
Drafting
According to an article at Review42, the average person sends 40 business-related email messages per day. That sounds about right to me. Over an 8-hour day, that’s 5 per hour, or once every 12 minutes. While most of these are probably brief, some are probably taking a bit of time and thought to write. First, here are some general email drafting best practices I’ve found to work:
- Use a detailed, relevant subject. That’s the first thing people see! Think newspaper headlines. It’s also super helpful for searching. Include a client name, project name, status, “action item,” etc. – not just “Hey.”
- Summarize at the top. If it’s going to be a long message – warn people at the top and touch on the key points first.
- Keep it formal. Use punctuation, spell check, etc. This may not be required based on your organization’s culture, but I’ve found it certainly doesn’t hurt. You never know who might forward your message on (the internet is forever!). Keep the informal stuff to text messages, instant messages, chats, etc.
- Follow the three C’s. Be clear, be concise, and be complete. Remember your audience and make sure to speak their language! Only send to the appropriate people – think twice before using the reply-all button!
- Include an email signature. This should at least have your contact information, but could also have a logo or links to relevant information or events. We’re lazy by default and may not have that in our address books.
- Remember your attachments! Attach them as soon as you start drafting so you don’t forget.
As far as how to cut down on the time spent drafting emails, here are three ways that have worked for me, with further details below:
- Eliminate – if there’s a better way to communicate, or if it’s just not necessary, don’t send it!
- Automate – emails can be automatically generated/sent in a variety of ways.
- Expedite – make sure you are typing as quickly and accurately as you can.
Eliminate
You know how one email can sometimes turn into 50? The more people on the chain, the higher the odds of this happening. Everyone wants to add their two cents in for better or worse, right? Email is best-suited for one-way communication – announcements, communicating results, sharing files, etc. It was not designed for back-and-forth communication, at least not if you’re trying to be efficient. Yet we all see way too many “conversations” happening over email! Odds are that a phone call or even better – a face-to-face meeting (virtual or in person) would be a better use of time. Of course, the opposite is also true – you’ve probably been in a meeting and thought to yourself “This could have easily been handled with an email…”
Here’s the point: only send an email if it’s adding some value, and it’s the appropriate, expected, and effective way to communicate. This not only eliminates emails you have to draft and send, but emails other people have to read!
Automate
You probably send a lot of emails that may as well come from a machine. Same message, same data points, different day. If you spend a lot of time drafting messages with a large amount of repetition, this can be automated, and it’s easier than you think. Here’s an example based on my background in the retail and restaurant industries. We downloaded a P&L report in Excel that had 50+ sheets – one for each store – identically structured. We formatted each sheet, added some additional calculations, did some sorting/filtering, and made it print-friendly. Then, we split out the file – one file for each store, also saved a PDF copy, and finally, we emailed each Excel/PDF file separately to the store manager. It took days. Then I got involved and said “I definitely don’t have time for that!” So I automated the entire process – all the steps – using an Excel macro. It ran in just minutes, and also ensured that no steps were missed.
Now I don’t expect everyone to do that, but I do want you to know that it’s possible. Many systems have reporting features that automatically send emails to you. You can even leverage some of the macros in the XLEV8 add-in to create and send repetitive messages for you (shameless plug: use the free trial to see for yourself!). It’s an example of how you can think once, apply often, and refine rarely.
Here’s the point: automating your most repetitive messages can save a lot of time, depending on your role. Look back over the messages you tend to send the most and find the best approach that might work for you.
Expedite
If you’ve decided that sending an email is necessary and it can’t be automated, there are several ways to expedite it and draft it quicker. One way is to start with a previous message as a template and tweak the relevant items. Be careful here: the risk is that you forget to change something and you share incorrect – or worse – confidential information. Copying and pasting is a similar approach – again make sure you tweak relevant items. Another great way is to make sure you are typing as quickly and accurately as possible. The average office worker types about 40 words per minute at 92% accuracy. While that’s not bad, it’s possible to type much faster – it’s not uncommon to type twice as fast with near 100% accuracy when you learn to type correctly – by touch without looking at your hands. There are many programs that help you learn to type much faster in just a couple of weeks – I like www.ratatype – it has a quick speed/accuracy test and easy, fun lessons. Just improving to 50 words per minute and 95% accuracy can save you 3-4 WEEKS of time! Some people suggest voice dictation for speeding up emails. Personally, I’ve had mixed results. I’d rather carefully craft the message myself. I use voice dictation for text messages, but usually not emails.
Here’s the point: you can likely do some things to draft emails quicker when you really need to send them and they can’t be automated. A mix of the approaches above could save you a lot of time.
Reading
According to Lifewire, the average office worker receives 121 emails each day. That’s one every 4 minutes. If you receive a lot less than that, just imagine – you’re driving the average down! What I’ve found is that most of our tasks tend to come from emails and we use our inboxes as sort of a giant to-do list. If you take that approach, following the 4 D’s might be really helpful:
- Delete it – if it doesn’t pertain to you
- Delegate it – if it’s more appropriate for someone else
- Do it – if it takes 2 minutes or less
- Defer it – if it takes more than 2 minutes
Since people check their email 15 times a day on average, according to techjury (guilty!), it’s important not to let it distract you too much. Some people will set aside dedicated times where they will read and respond to messages. If that’s acceptable in your company, industry, and role, go for it. Otherwise, just realize that it can be a distraction and remember those 4 D’s.
To cut down on the time you spend reading emails, here are some additional strategies:
- Use global distribution lists and departmental emails rather than specifying specific people. People tend to come and go and yet we often forget to change who we are sending to. Global distribution lists make that much easier by only needing to change the list in one place.
- Remove yourself from email chains if your involvement is not required. You might have to request that first, so be prepared to have a good reason! Feel free to reference this article!
- Encourage senders to use the best practices above to make it as easy as possible for you to find the important details (hint: in the subject or a summary at the top!).
- Touch things once. When you read an email – flag it, file it, or delete it. Try not to touch it more than once – that tends to double the time you spend dealing with it!
- Leaders: set the expectations around email – how quickly to send a response, how formal, when an email is appropriate, etc. It might seem silly, but given how much time people spend on email, it really is that important!
Archiving
According to techjury, the average inbox has 200 emails. In my experience, this is a polarizing issue. People either try to keep the inbox neat and tidy with just the active items they are working on (me!) or they never file or delete anything. Some people think this is some kind of badge of honor. I just don’t see how you can keep up with it all – how do things not constantly fall through the cracks? Some people suggest just keeping two folders: Archive and Follow Up. They say search functionality makes it so easy to find things these days, but I disagree. I might file things that have nothing to do with the sender, subject, or date – the main search fields.
I’ve generally used 10-20 folders, such as Networking, References, Training, Projects, Team, etc. at each of the roles I’ve had in accounting and finance. Sometimes I had folders corresponding to different fiscal periods. In public accounting, I also had folders for each of the clients I worked with. In my current pre-sales role, I have those general folders, and also a hierarchy of folders from the opportunities I’m working on (see the screenshot to the right/below). Within those alphabetical folders are dozens or hundreds of subfolders related to the companies we’ve worked with. Imagine all the scrolling I’d have to do to file my emails in all those folders! Thankfully I have an awesome macro to expedite that (more in a moment).
Many of the emails I get now are system-generated, such as SalesForce, letting me know I’m assigned to an opportunity, a meeting is scheduled, a meeting date/time was changed, or an opportunity deal was closed. I use an Excel template with macros that leverage those messages in my inbox to create/change appointments, copy/paste/rename template files, move folders around, etc., and also files those emails in the right folders. That’s right – Excel can talk to Outlook! This template saves me 1-2 hours a week. If you’re in a similar role, let me know – I might be able to help you in a similar way.
I also leverage one of my favorite macros ever that helps me automatically file messages based on pre-determined rules (subject, sender, etc.), a similarity index between the email subject and the folders I’ve set up, and a quickly searchable list of folders that can then also be copied and pasted (no more drag and drop needed!). This one macro saves me 3+ hours a week in keeping my inbox tidy and emails filed in the right folder. Best of all, unlike Outlook rules (which are a pain to set up and automatically move emails), these are just suggestions that I can review and change if I’d like. It can even ignore flagged emails if I’d like. If you manage a lot of email, I encourage you to try it for yourself! See the video below for a quick demonstration of this and other email/calendar management macros in the XLEV8 add-in suite.
How do you determine what to file and what to delete? That’s pretty subjective. I generally file most items (since I can do it quite efficiently) but if there is very little chance I’ll ever need something, I delete it. That’s only 5-10% of my messages. To search, use the Ctrl+e shortcut in Outlook and use the search strings, such as “from:derek.henry” to find what you are looking for. Or search within your folders to find things even quicker. The better you and your colleagues follow the best practices above when drafting messages, the easier it will be to find what you are looking for.
Automation Demonstration
If you have other email efficiency tips, please share in the comments below!
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