Corporate Email Success?

[olivse]

In my organization, I lasted 2 whole days before the director of my dept spoke with my manager and asked that it be turned off. He felt it didn't "send the right message".

[OnlyOneN]

I'm guessing that you're referring to using an autoresponder letting people know that you only check email twice a day. Here's what I did and what worked for me.


Turn of "autocheck" in your email program. I had Outlook set to check my email every 5 minutes, and invariably, every 5 minutes it would chime, letting me know another message has arrived. (I would then look at the email, interrupting whatever I was doing; only to be interrupted again in another 5 minutes)

Manually check your email by clicking send/receive (outlook) as infrequently as you can. If your boss or director expects you to respond to emails instantaneously, try to ween them off of that by gradually increasing the time it takes you to respond.


My clients have learned that if they have an emergency, they should call and follow-up with an email.

I implemented this immediately after hearing Tim's talk from SXSW, and it has decreased my email-stress and anxiety tremendously. (I also fired two clients, which has made me a LOT happier, but that's another post)

Also, get an excellent spam filter. I forward all my email through my gmail account (then POP my gmail account), which has cut the spam arriving in my email client down to 2-3 day, versus the hundreds I was receiving. This also gives you the added benefit of having all your email backed-up elsewhere.

Good luck, olivse.

Glen


In my organization, I lasted 2 whole days before the director of my dept spoke with my manager and asked that it be turned off. He felt it didn't "send the right message".

[SuzanneR]

I also turned mine off - but realized that you don't have to blatantly announce that you will only answer email twice a day. Many of my colleagues don't answer email immediately - if anyone asks why you didn't reply within five minutes, you can say you were in a meeting or working on a deadline. Chances are, they'll never ask.

If someone storms in wondering why you didn't answer an email immediately, you can apologize, say you were on deadline, or say innocently 'what email? darn that Microsoft, my emails have been disappearing lately. I'll have to talk to the helpdesk..." (It's an often used excuse by Microsoft employees).

[SMC]

...if anyone asks why you didn't reply within five minutes, you can say you were in a meeting or working on a deadline. Chances are, they'll never ask.

Or you could tell them you have better things to do than live in your Inbox all day, and suggest they try it too.

[greg]

I like the idea of limiting the number of times you check mail, although the whole autoresponder thing might be a bit much.

An alternate strategy I'd advance is to change your .signature that's placed at the end of your email with two lines that convey that email is processed as workload permits, and for urgent issues to please pick up a telephone.

Luckily your manager just told you to turn off the autoresponder, instead of telling you to check your email like a rat at a sugar-pellet dispenser.

-- Greg

[Maq]

If someone storms in wondering why you didn't answer an email immediately, you can apologize, say you were on deadline, or say innocently 'what email? darn that Microsoft, my emails have been disappearing lately. I'll have to talk to the helpdesk..." (It's an often used excuse by Microsoft employees).
I used to work at Microsoft based in Europe, out here we do the 'twice a day' trick a lot.

Something that I also did was go into the company email setup and take myself off mailing lists that I didn't want to be part of, like the French Tech Support Group which I was part of based on my location and job title. I wold never answer tech support questions, there is a group with that job.

[jetpacklife]

Yeah, I thought the autoreply thing was just about the worst advice in the book. For website customer service and people you're working with far away, it may be nice. However, for in the office, everyone should be here from 9-5, it's just not good. It's also a distraction to others. It creates needless email for your coworkers, and can even cause loops. (Imagine if everyone had autoresponders on)

[Trancender]

'Jet' you may have accidentally stumbled upon a bit of genius... :)

Everybody - turn on your autoresponders and just let the email system 'talk' to itself.

[iandymorris]

I came to the same conclusion as many of you. The autoresponder is simply not necesary. As long as you do check twice a day and answer the messages with in four business hours no one is going to be two terribly peeved. Even in very aggressive corporrate cultures it is understood that if you have something that is urgent you follow up with a phone call.

Also it might make sense to simply tell the just send out mass email to the 2 to 20 people that actually might care just to educate them.

I my self am so terribly addicted to email checking that it really is like crack and i press the refresh button endlessly hoping for something new and highly unimportant and unurgent thing for me to do right away as if it highly important.

What I finally did to day and wanted to share is that I changed a setting in outlook so that even if press the send recieve button it won't refresh. Also I can send out email and it will not automatically check incoming mail. I then set a autohotkey macro (free easy to use software) that will automatically download the email at 11 am and 3pm. If I am waiting for an urgent email then I still have away to go ahead and check it however I have made it signficantly difficult that I have a chance not to follow the insane impulse.


I'm guessing that you're referring to using an autoresponder letting people know that you only check email twice a day. Here's what I did and what worked for me.


Turn of "autocheck" in your email program. I had Outlook set to check my email every 5 minutes, and invariably, every 5 minutes it would chime, letting me know another message has arrived. (I would then look at the email, interrupting whatever I was doing; only to be interrupted again in another 5 minutes)

Manually check your email by clicking send/receive (outlook) as infrequently as you can. If your boss or director expects you to respond to emails instantaneously, try to ween them off of that by gradually increasing the time it takes you to respond.


My clients have learned that if they have an emergency, they should call and follow-up with an email.

I implemented this immediately after hearing Tim's talk from SXSW, and it has decreased my email-stress and anxiety tremendously. (I also fired two clients, which has made me a LOT happier, but that's another post)

Also, get an excellent spam filter. I forward all my email through my gmail account (then POP my gmail account), which has cut the spam arriving in my email client down to 2-3 day, versus the hundreds I was receiving. This also gives you the added benefit of having all your email backed-up elsewhere.

Good luck, olivse.

Glen

[iandymorris]

sorry to double post so quickly. i just realized that for many people a much better idea than an autoresponder that won't annoy people so badly but will still educate people is to include information in your signature line that tells when you check you inbox and when instructs the proper way of contacting in case of urgent message.

[Drewkerr]

I can agree with you about only checking email twice a day. But saying the autoresponder was the worst advice in the book is way off. I own my own company, and deal with tech suport, accounting, investors, clients, my business partner and employees, and it works great.

The problem with not saying a time when you will respond can cause a problem in itself. If they send something urgent, and don't know 1) when or how quickly you will get back to them and 2) or an alternative contact will and cause more problems then the autoresponder.

Olivse - I would go back to your boss and give a good explanation about why you did it (ie, always interupted with unimportant emails, it can be distraction) and how it can benefit your productivity (which in turn benefits the company) there are not too many people that don't have the common sense to say Hey that makes sense.

Now, with all that said, there are some jobs/positions where your job is all email based (tech support) where checking twice a day might not be good. But even having a autoresponder with your workload and average response times would be extremely benefical.

Drew

[read]

I've been thinking about the autoresponder thing a bit, and I think the main point of it is to train ourselves to only check email twice a day. If it's public, people will begin to expect it, and we will begin to follow our own rules.

Although I don't use the autoresponder, I do keep a signature in my emails that says that I am only able to check email once a day. My schedule changes, but I wish I could give a specific time. The specific times seem to be the key -- not just to train other people, but to train ourselves!

[MiniBlueDragon]

I think it's just a common sense thing to be honest.

If I were to add a message in my signature along the lines of, "Due to workload I will only be checking my emails twice per day" the first thing that would happen is a multitude of emails and messages along the lines of "Yeah right... Workload? hahahaha!" as there are only 20 people in the company and we're all within earshot of each other so I simpyl don't tell them.

I have of course informed the people who email often (normally my other half with some random request about picking up a melon on the way home etc!) that I only check emails at two specific times so they know that urgencies require a phone call, preferably on the mobile.

If an urgent work-related email isn't replied to within 5 minutes I'll have someone yelling over the partition to find out why so it's not a biggie.

Basically if you know/think you'll have bosses fire-breathing at you for telling every person who emails you that you "only check twice per day" then don't...

To paraphrase a much-admired author, "ask for forgiveness rather than permission" but then add, "providing you won't get in deep shit for it" ;)

[Webzu]

I just don't see that flying in corporate America.

I left in March because they wanted me to commit to at least 50 hrs per week. They expected me to check emails after hours and in the weekend. There was even talk of giving us a pager (and I was not tech support).

They made us install corporate instant message on our computers so now everyone knew when we're online. I would literally be receiving emails, multiple IM's, people coming to my desk, plus the phone calls. Plus throw in the meetings the only time to get the work done was after hours and that is what was expected. It was crazy.

Trying to implement Tim's ideas would be career suicide but I knew that "career" wasn't for me so I quit in March three months before reading Tim's book. :D

I don't think Tim ever worked for a fortune 500 company and I just don't see those ideas of not checking email would work. I would be in my boss's office so fast my head would spin. That's why as Tim wrote sometimes the job isn't salvageable. I walked away from 65K job and I have zero regrets. Although I'm very lucky that I have a supportive wife who made more money than I did and is now carrying the insurance. :D

She works like 70-100 hrs per week so I gave her Tim's book and she is reading it. IMHO It's just not worth it to kill yourself for a corporate/firm job.

I hope she becomes a 4HWW convert and we can work on our muses together. She is so smart, business savvy, and a hard worker that I know she would be very successful with whatever muse she would chose but she is so into the firm and becoming partner that she isn't the light yet. Her blackberry chimes with emails at midnight! :mad:

[Marcie]

I hope she becomes a 4HWW convert and we can work on our muses together. She is so smart, business savvy, and a hard worker that I know she would be very successful with whatever muse she would chose but she is so into the firm and becoming partner that she isn't the light yet. Her blackberry chimes with emails at midnight! :mad:

Ack my husband is in a similar situation, I want to chuck that blackberry out the window! He's not much of a reader (when it comes to things that take longer than 30 mins to read :rolleyes:) but I did send him this (from Tim's blog) http://www.changethis.com/34.04.LowInfo and it made him pay a little attention. Hopefully I can lead by example ;)

Anyway, I was thinking it might be a *little* better to say something like "this email is always checked twice a day, usually around 11am and 4pm. If you have something urgent that cannot wait until that time, please contact me at 555-123-4567."

After all, even with a blackberry we can't all check all emails as soon as they come in (due to meetings, etc.) My husband was actually reprimanded for checking his blackberry in a meeting once!

~Marcie

[Webzu]

Ack my husband is in a similar situation, I want to chuck that blackberry out the window! He's not much of a reader (when it comes to things that take longer than 30 mins to read :rolleyes:) but I did send him this (from Tim's blog) http://www.changethis.com/34.04.LowInfo and it made him pay a little attention. Hopefully I can lead by example ;)

Anyway, I was thinking it might be a *little* better to say something like "this email is always checked twice a day, usually around 11am and 4pm. If you have something urgent that cannot wait until that time, please contact me at 555-123-4567."

After all, even with a blackberry we can't all check all emails as soon as they come in (due to meetings, etc.) My husband was actually reprimanded for checking his blackberry in a meeting once!

~Marcie

Awesome report from Tim. I hadn't seen that before. Thanks for the link!