Workers, on average, spend about 28 percent of their workweek managing their email according to the McKinsey Global Institute. What is that costing the organization? Let’s say that your team member is paid $50,000 a year. That would mean that they are getting paid $14,000 a year just to manage their email. What’s the total salary amount of your team members? Let’s say your payroll is at $500,000 a year. That’s $140,000 a year spent reading, sending and responding to emails.
Wondering what your return on investment of time is on that? Is there a more efficient and effective way to communicate with team members than the current methods you’re using?
Here’s some effective methods for reducing the avalanche I found in the most recent Success Magazine entitled, “Tech and Your Time”:
YOUR BRAIN: switches from “legato” (deeper) thinking to “staccato” (shallow, quick) thinking more easily. So, it’s suggested that you block off the 90-minute fringes of your day to avoid email. Yes, this may seem like a pipe dream, but why not try it this week and see what results you get?
SLEEP WELL: by avoiding email right before you go to bed. Email can overload you with energy or issues right before you go to bed. Not a good recipe for sweet dreams.
FILTER: emails anyway that you can in order to prioritize them. They mention something in the article called SaneBox (I haven’t tried it, but anything with the word sane in it is something I am attracted to). The way I understand it is that SaneBox uses past interactions in your Outlook inbox to determine the importance of incoming messages.
RELATIONSHIPS: lead to great transactions, not the other way around. The quality of the relationship you have with your boss, team member, vendors or customers will lead to effective and profitable transactions.
PICK UP THE PHONE: or walk over and talk to the person. Email and text are not a good method for brainstorming, high-value decision making, and when tone really matters. Trust me, if your tone comes across poorly you are going to spend a lot more time cleaning up the email conversation than it would have been to just have a conversation with that person.
STOP THE NOTIFICATIONS: which are completely distracting. Turn off the constant notifications and especially all the dinging and buzzing. Your brain is constantly switching back and forth and therefore is not functioning optimally.
SPEND MORE TIME IN PREPARATION: rather than just including everyone in an email correspondence, think about who really needs the information. So many times teams get into a mode of, “I better copy him/her on this email or I will get in trouble.” That is a default mode that will end up costing your company thousands of dollars this year. Work on creating policies around communication that develop and maintain a safe environment with accountability and responsibility. It’s much cheaper in the long run.
VIDEO on reducing email: Silent video that gives you 10 ways to reduce volume of emails. (1 min 13 sec)
TRY THIS WITH YOUR TEAM THIS WEEK:
Start by discussing ways to cut back on email and rope off a “no-email zone” time period that everyone can agree to, even if it’s just 1-hour a day. This will allow team members to consolidate their thoughts and respond in a more proactive rather than reactive way. Here’s a super funny video you can play to set up the topic with your team. CLICK HERE. (3:27)
Shameless plug: If you would like to have me work with you or your team on designing time more effectively, moving managers to leaders, team building, executive presence or having more effective conversations that result in better outcomes, give me a call or text me at (540) 815-1300 or respond to this email.
