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Three Simple Ways to Direct Conversations in Multiple-Recipient E-mails

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

One of the greatest benefits to using e-mail is the ability to converse with a group of people asynchronously over a large geographic area.  Just add any number of e-mail addresses into the To:, CC: and BCC: fields, write your e-mail and hit Send.  Off goes your message to be read and responded to by everyone everywhere at any time. And that’s when the trouble begins.

Spaghetti on a Plate

Unlike real-time environments such as conference calls or meetings where the directionality of a statement can be implied by the circumstances – “She’s asking me that question because she’s looking at me.” or “That’s a question for the entire group.” - e-mail messages rarely queue the directionality of comments or questions.  Consequently, any and/or many of the people on the thread begin weighing in … via ”Reply All” of course.  Now, instead of a communication that was intended to keep a group informed while also directing certain comments to some and seeking specific answers from others, you have spaghetti on a plate.  A whole bunch of unorganized information is being delivered to a large group of people with no one directing traffic.  Think Tokyo train platforms at rush hour.

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Keeping E-mail Under Control

Thursday, February 3, 2011

This is a guest post by Stephanie Calahan.  Stephanie is a nationally known speaker, productivity consultant and founder of Calahan Solutions.

“Some firms report that e-mails account for up to 40 percent of data-storage costs, with an estimated one in five defined as non-business-related”

– Source: Hitachi Data Survey of 630 IT Directors, via vnunet.com

Are you like most executives?  Statistics report that the average exec averages at least 100 emails daily.  Add to that, the National Association of Professional Organizers reports that e-mail has added one to two hours to each person’s work schedule per day compared to 10 years ago!

Today I’ll cover some tips you can use to keep your in-box under control.

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Three Reasons Why Executive Time Management is Like Losing Weight

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Instead of doing the normal “set your goals” first-of-the-year post that you’d expect from a productivity guy, I wanted to do something different. The purpose of New Year’s resolutions is to take stock of our lives and, hopefully, find things we can improve. However, making a list of resolutions that invariably fail is not only pointless and unproductive, it’s failure – plain and simple. Why do we want to start the year off with a failure?

And then it hit me! The rate of failure of New Year’s resolutions is so high that their failure must have a pattern, a discernible weakness. That got me to thinking. Why do these resolutions (and similar commitments) fail so often? More importantly, how could that dynamic be changed to make keeping resolutions a successful experience?

Much thought and many discussions ensued to uncover the dynamics of resolution failure. The theory proposed below was developed based on these informal research sessions and the actual experiences of success I encountered. I’m sure there are thousands (millions?) of PhDs who could give us all a lesson on the hows and whys we have difficulty maintaining commitments. But, candidly, if they were so smart, they’d be able to do more than explain why we can’t fulfill certain types of commitments, they’d offer us an answer that can be translated into action resulting in success.

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QuickTip: Schedule Snippets of Time Between Appointments

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Today, people run from appointment to appointment to appointment with nary a moment’s rest.  Not only is this overwhelming, it’s ineffective.  Imagine sheets of paper fluttering to the flow behind you as you charge from one meeting to the next conference call.  These are the thoughts and tasks you’re forgetting in your rush. 

Schedule 5-15 minutes between every appointment to collect your thoughts, check in with team members, prepare for the next appointment, and even relax for a moment!  You will be more effective, more efficient, more responsive, and less stressed out.