Three tips for more effective e-mailing

Network World - We have days for lovers (Valentine’s Day) and for heroes (Memorial Day), so why not a day for e-mail (Information Overload Awareness Day)? The Information Overload presentation was about far more than just e-mail, but e-mail leads the deluge of information for most workers. So let's deal with the deluge, use addressing fields correctly, and look at e-mail writing from the bottom up.

According to the excellent book Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, workers in Fortune 1000 companies spend four hours per day, every day, working with e-mail. That sounds both like information overload and like a normal day for far too many people. If you say you get 200 e-mail messages per day, looking for sympathy, the one-uppers around will start telling you about inboxes with 300 or 400 or more messages. Has the e-mail deluge become a badge of honor? Or is admitting you can't handle your e-mail workload somehow newsworthy?

Many ideas during Information Overload Day addressed the e-mail problem, but we only have time to look at one: occasional abstinence. After e-mail and various interruptions, the average white-collar knowledge worker has only 12% of the day left for actual thinking (insert your favorite idiot vice president joke here). By declaring two mornings or afternoons each week “e-mail free zones” you can reclaim some time for yourself and your thoughts.

It sounds easy, but you won't be able to make this work for about three weeks. The urge to check e-mail during your assigned “out of the inbox” times will overwhelm your good intentions for weeks. If you can do it the first week, let me know, and I'll award you the Mentally Tough Certificate suitable for framing.

After five or six half-days attempting to go e-mail-less, you'll start to realize the world goes on even if you're not checking your inbox. Repeat after me: If I were on a plane, I couldn't check e-mail. If I were at a funeral, I couldn't check e-mail. If I were in the hospital, I couldn't check e-mail. Repeat these enough, and you'll be able to ignore the Siren call of e-mail for four hours twice a week. After you make this a habit, you'll be amazed at how much more you can get done.

Let me suggest you turn off any type of e-mail arrival announcement on your computer or BlackBerry all the time, not just your two sessions of peace. When interrupted by the “ding” of new e-mail, your speeding thoughts hit a bridge abutment, and you can't regain your focus until about five times longer than the interruption. No ding, more peace.