Email is a flawed system. What can we do to make it work for us?

A World Without Email

If email is not working for us, why are we working so hard to work around it? This thought honestly never occurred to me before reading the book, A World Without Email by Cal Newport (Many thanks Carla Dancy Smith for co-leading last month’s book discussion on this and creating the discussion notes.) And, it’s so true, I’ve come up with email folders, filters, rules, automatic responses, etc., just to stay on top of this never-ending stream of communication...
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The book club discussion triggered my thinking about what we can do now to make email work for us. You may not be in a position to eliminate it entirely (although, some organizations have, believe it or not) but I challenge you to thoughtfully design another way to operate…or a way to love the one we’re with.

Making Email Work for Us: A Few Tips

• Simulate the 'Friction' One of the challenges with email is simply the volume. It’s just too easy to send a message when a thought pops in your head. And as a result, we send and receive way too many. The fix: Here’s a thought exercise…Imagine there is more 'friction' when you send an email. Imagine having to get up from your desk, walk down the hall, catch your colleague in a free moment, and ask the question. If all of this effort were needed, would you still send it? If not, save it for your one-on-one meeting. Which brings us to our next point.
• Maximize your Meetings A key way to eliminate many emails is to make better use of other means of exchange, for example meetings. The fix: Set the expectation with your staff about how you’d like to work together. Ask them to save their non-urgent questions until you meet 1:1 or as a team. Another option is to create a shared document where everyone can drop their thoughts during the week. Then review it to ensure the ideas are captured/addressed.
• Take time to Triage There’s a big blind spot with email—we tend to underestimate how long it takes to organize info. In fact, many people answer messages as they come, without any real method for triage or thoughtful prioritization. The fix: Here’s an exercise you can do tomorrow morning. Time yourself as you are reading and organizing 50 emails in your inbox. Then dedicate that amount of time every day--actually block the time on your calendar--to organize your inbox. Organizing your emails is separate from actually responding to messages and will make all the difference in how much you feel in control of your inbox. The general rule, from David Allen’s Getting Things Done, is if it will take longer than 3 minutes to respond to an email, it’s considered a task. Therefore, you will need to block time on your calendar to complete the task.
• Create Team Agreements on How to Communicate One challenge with email is that it tends to become the default, without regard for the other communications channels available. The fix: Team Agreements are a big help as it relates to communication norms overall. Working collaboratively with your team, come up with agreements on how you will use Slack/IM/Teams – versus email. Agree to revisit the agreements periodically, say when new people join the team.

 
I hope this short list gets you thinking…and do let me know what works for you, as you rethink how email can work for us!