chrisbrogan.com - Latest Comments in More Email Management Tips

Re: More Email Management Tips

Scrubly — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:51:34 -0000

Great tips on email management

Re: More Email Management Tips

bin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:48:56 -0000

Chris' tips for email work equally well for voice mail messages. Keep them brief, and seek to move the discussion forward.

Re: More Email Management Tips

IheartPGH — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 10:17:54 -0000

Chris - are you still using this system? I was using it before but my spreadsheet was not well set up - I just went back to this idea for event submissions to IheartPGH - I think this will help me further streamline and follow up on upcoming events.
Just curious if you are still using a google form or have a new system in place. Hope all is well.

Re: More Email Management Tips

usb flash drive — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 07:06:32 -0000

I think lists are the best way to go! Especially if you have more than one question to be answered. People are so busy that they seem to miss questions embedded in paragraphs and they only answer the first question they see. If I put my questions in a list, people are more likely to answer each one and that makes it more efficient for everyone.

Re: More Email Management Tips

content filter — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:29:05 -0000

Thanks for the nice management tips which I really like a lot.So its really one of the post which having this kind of creative ideas.Its very useful for me.Keep blogging.

Re: More Email Management Tips

Timberland shoes — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:05:44 -0000

I like what you said.

Re: More Email Management Tips

sd karte 4gb — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:52:37 -0000

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Re: More Email Management Tips

Pankaj — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:10:12 -0000

Making a concerted effort to keep off email for certain types of work could be a good idea. For example:-

- document collaboration (please take a look at the attached document)
- schedule coordination (when will you have the time to talk)
- task management (please finish the document by 10 tomorrow)
- discussions (what do you think about the new plan?)

And shift to online collaboration tools for the above, which offer specialized tools for each of the above. We did a whitepaper on this recently - http://www.hyperoffice.com/...

Re: More Email Management Tips

ApxAlarmm556 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:32:09 -0000

Great article! I’ve used many of the methods you mention and they are great! I really like the tips you have given.I am interested very much in the subject matter of your blog.Thanx for making such a cool post.Keep blogging.

Re: More Email Management Tips

Joe Manna — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:41:54 -0000

I've learned a few lessons after several years of reading and replying to hundreds of thousands of emails in my lifetime. Replying to email with clear and concise answers to people questions is a great way to keep things brief.

Another great piece of advice is to keep the emotion out of responses. In many instances, emotion never is received the way it's intended for the recipient.

Using tools and scripts to auto-sort and remove junk from the Inbox is important but does require a regular check to ensure no one falls into the cracks of email filters.

Using colors and tagging in email is a great way to quickly organize and see what's going on in your email at any given time. I wrote a fairly lengthy post about this but it's helpful, Email Is Not a To-Do List! (Tutorial on Email Tagging). I focused on using Mozilla Thunderbird to do email tagging, in the examples.

Great advice, Chris. I use subject lines on a regular basis as it's needed: "URGENT," "TIMELY," "REVIEW," "REFERENCE" -- using these words before the subject line is to set the expectations on response and the priority.

~Joseph

Re: More Email Management Tips

anavidi — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:07:26 -0000

I loved the article and am implementing a couple of the ideas right now.

It seems like there is a unifying mindset that these ideas seem to flow from. The idea that you do not just write an email with the "things" you want to say. You write an email with an eye towards what your end goal for the communication is.

Re: More Email Management Tips

Ronnie — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:10:22 -0000

AAAAA .. Amazing post ...i was looking for such post and once again you helped me... Thanks a ton..

Re: More Email Management Tips

jbreazeale — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:10:10 -0000

Thank you, thank you! I remember an earlier post where you mentioned using Google Docs to create a form for your site and I thought - hey, that's a good idea, but never managed to dig into GD to figure out how to do it. By including just that one paragraph at the beginning of this post that included the steps to make the form, I was able to see:
* what was involved in making this form
* understand that it would be a 15 min project, not a 60+ minute one, and
* create my own contact form for my site.

Thanks! (for this and all of the great content you so generously share with us all!)

Re: More Email Management Tips

Elena Verlee — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:59:24 -0000

Chris, great points on all types of email communication. The first thing I tell my D-I-Y PR clients is to STOP sending press releases to reporters and send email pitches instead. Definitely, if the email subject doesn't catch attention among your 600 emails, they do not get opened at all so it doesn't matter what gets said.

If you cannot communicate what is compelling about your announcement in just a few words or sentences, then the editor just gets confused about what the story is about and then decides it is not worth his time to figure it out for you.

It's better to spend the time upfront honing a short but effective message to select people, rather than a long, crappy message and spending the time pitching it to as many people you can get to not listen to you ;-)

Re: More Email Management Tips

Liz Gallagher — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:09:31 -0000

Re: More Email Management Tips

Todd — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:32:46 -0000

Chris, I've gotten lots of positive feedback by using the "all caps followed by a clarifier" approach.
"NEED YOUR FEEDBACK: You'd love an early Monday meeting, right?"
More often than not, I try to make the subject line humorous or lace it with office-friendly references and double entendre. I seem to get more responses that way.

Re: More Email Management Tips

Marian Schembari — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:32:10 -0000

These are great tips. One thing I like to do (when I have the time) is write the email, save it, and go back in 15 minutes. It lets me clear out excess crap I don't need to say and sometimes I rethink sending it altogether.

Re: More Email Management Tips

Mhairi — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:54:29 -0000

Its often all too easy to hide behind email. Being systematic in your approach to managing your inbox and in communicating your message effectively whether you do you it yourself or delegate helps you develop better habits and avoid email creep. Thanks for sharing your system with us!

Re: More Email Management Tips

Kathy Purdy — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:38:40 -0000

Do you have much trouble with spam entries with your Google Docs contact form?

Re: More Email Management Tips

Joe Hafner — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:36:31 -0000

Chris' tips for email work equally well for voice mail messages. Keep them brief, and seek to move the discussion forward.

Re: More Email Management Tips

ChrisDonaldson — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:00:31 -0000

Love the spreadsheet idea! The only thing I might change is to make who it is 'FROM' the first, rather than second, data point for review. Yes - Subject line and all the rest are really important - but I always look at who's on the other end of the can and string first. This alone dictates what happens next.

Can I have an assistant too?

Re: More Email Management Tips

richdixon — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:55:34 -0000

Absolutely correct--emails with too many words just cause confusion.

Thanks for the Google Docs tutorial. It's a great idea. BTW--how's that "bag of money" thing working out?

I think you should acknowledge that "Diane" is your mom, who reserves the right to over-rule or add her own editorial comments.

Personally, I think "mom as assistant" is a nice illusion for you. :-))

Re: More Email Management Tips

Erik Folgate — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:22:54 -0000

Great idea with using Google Docs to generate a form and post it as the contact page. I just have them emailed to me, but it's a horrible way keeping track of email addresses and names.

Re: More Email Management Tips

Jennifer — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:15:15 -0000

Loved this post about email brevity. I get blasted by my friends all the time about too long emails and am working hard to reform myself. I'm definitely going to adopt your subject line tactic.

When I need to really stress something in email I use colored text and I always provide a deadline for when I need answers to my questions. Most of the time this works in generating a quick response.

Your 1, 2, 3 method is definitely something else I will try.

Thanks for the great tips!

Re: More Email Management Tips

Ida Davidson — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:06:47 -0000

Just the Google Docs forms tip was a huge help for me. I've learned quite a bit from you, since I subscribed a few months ago. Thanks so much!