e-mail – 5 sentences or less.
organization / productivity July 20th, 2007
Mike Davidson has come up with a great way to reduce inbox insanity: Signing your emails with a note that explains that you only respond with a set number of sentences.
As a Blackberry-carryin’ technology manager in 2 or 3 time zones at any given time, I rely too heavily on email. Email has inherent limitations:
- Email denies any non-verbal or auditory communication, which can completely change the intent or meaning of a communication.
- Email fosters time-disparity – telephone, IM, and face to face communication all involve some parity in time invested by both parties. With email, you can spend a short period of time and create a huge time commitment for the other party. And you wonder why they take so long getting back to you?
- Email tempts one to reply to larger communities than needed; too many people fail to trim the carbon-copy field down as conversations progress.
My new rules?
- Stick to five sentences or less.
- Stop any email trail after 3 exchanges, walk over and talk to the person. Or pick up a telephone.
- Use email for status communication, and make any valuative communication in person or over the phone.
[tags]communication, email, five sentences, productivity[/tags]
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