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04.09

Improve Your E-mail Effectiveness

By John Meredith

IEEE’s volunteer leaders depend on e-mail communications to carry out their work. Unfortunately, this powerful tool in today’s high-tech society is a two-edged sword. E-mail enables us to almost instantly communicate with one another in all parts of the globe. But this pervasive tool presents a number of challenges and frustrations that can seriously hinder our efficiency and effectiveness. High volume communications traffic, along with problems such as lack of response or delayed response, spamming, bounced messages, poorly written messages, and endless message threads are some of the challenges that often leave the hapless volunteer with a feeling that e-mail is a burden.

If you are an e-mail user who suffers from this frustration, I urge you to take steps to improve your e-mail effectiveness. This article provides practical tips on using your e-mail to eliminate or mitigate many of the problems that high-volume e-mail users endure. Although my suggestions will require some effort, you will be rewarded in time savings and improved effectiveness in your ability to communicate with your colleagues.

Communication Basics

When we undertake the task of communicating information to another person or to a group by e-mail, it is important to consider three factors — the sender of the information, the message that is being sent, and the receiver of the information. Each has an influence on the effectiveness of the end result — understanding of the message and action on the message being communicated. Let’s consider these factors and their influence on the communications process.

Shaping the Message

The originator of an e-mail message makes decisions that not only shape the message itself, but also the likelihood that the recipient will act on the message in the desired manner. The sender must keep in mind that the receiver of the message is probably time-challenged and is just as interested as you are in quickly responding to your message. Liberal application of common sense and courtesy can yield improved response to your e-mails. Several important things you should consider when drafting e-mails are:

• Use a descriptive subject

• Ensure any attachments are attached prior to sending your e-mail. I recommend inserting attachments prior to drafting your message. This will reduce the chances for missed attachments — a source of frustration for e-mail users

• Be mindful of limitations that the intended recipient or recipients may have. For example, some e-mail users may have limited bandwidth that would present difficulties in handling large files. Stay with common applications when sending files. When in doubt, confirm the recipient’s capabilities before sending non-common applications or large files

•  Keep your distribution lists up to date

• Use a spell checker, but follow-up with a final check to ensure clarity and to correct errors you may have missed

• Be courteous; avoid angry diatribes

• Use the priority flag sparingly; overuse will cause recipients to ignore your priority flag

• Avoid being the ‘town crier’ by resending non-business-related e-mail to distribution lists. Many busy users consider this type of traffic as spam and will block traffic to prevent your message from being delivered to their in box

• Exercise caution in using the reply to all option. Ask the question, “does the entire distribution list need to see my response?”

Content Considerations

The message that you send must be carefully drafted to communicate your message. Your message should have a purpose — this drives the content and focuses you as you write the message. Let’s consider some important points to keep in mind in when crafting your message:

• State the purpose of your message briefly in your opening sentence

• Provide background information where necessary

• Keep your message short and to the point

• When responding to another colleague’s e-mail, ensure that you are addressing their request

• If you have a long message that consists of two or more unrelated topics, consider sending more than one message

• If your message contains several points, segregate each point within its own paragraph. Use of numbering or bulleting can facilitate this process

• Where action is requested from multiple recipients, clearly identify actions required, deadlines and assigned responsibilities

The Final Link

The person on the other end of the communications link has an important role in making the e-mail process work efficiently. All too often, slow or missing responses are the fault of volunteers who don’t take their communications responsibilities seriously. Volunteers who have agreed to serve must allow enough time to regularly read and respond to their e-mail traffic. Since e-mail traffic is a two-way process the receiver is also the sender and should consider the points made above. As a receiver of e-mail, you should:

• Check your e-mail regularly

• Respond to your e-mail requests promptly

• When action is required respond to the issue that the sender is addressing

• Use an e-mail alias that is linked to your internet service provider (ISP). If you change your ISP, inform your alias server promptly to ensure continuity of service

Other Efficiency Factors

In addition to the previous points, the serious e-mail user can take a number of actions to improve the efficiency of their e-mail tasks, including:

• Organize your e-mail files into categories (normally by subject) that will enable you to quickly find old e-mails. A couple of important categories are:
   

  • Priority — this is where you would file e-mails that require response as soon as possible
     

  • Pending — this is where you would file e-mails where you action is not yet complete
     

  • Completed — this is where you file e-mails where no further action is required and where they do not fit any of your other filing categories
     

• Use filters to automatically file information messages from e-mail subscription lists. These are normally lower priority and can be read on a ‘rainy day’

• Delete obvious spam messages. In many cases you will recognize these messages by their subject lines and can delete the message without opening

• Use spam filters

• Remove yourself from as many e-mail lists as possible

• Create distribution lists to avoid manually inserting multiple addressees

Benefits of Your Investment

E-mail is like any other tool. It requires a modicum of maintenance to maximize its benefits. These suggestions will increase your e-mail efficiency, freeing up more time for other activities in your busy life.

John W. Meredith, P.E., is an IEEE Life Senior Member and was 2007 IEEE-USA President. He is a member of the IEEE-USA Communications Committee and IEEE-USA's liaison to the IEEE Educational Activities Board. He recently authored the fourth in the series of IEEE-USA GOLD e-books, Launching Your Career: Lifelong Learning — Your Key to an Enjoyable and Rewarding Career.

Comments on this article may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.