Dear Coworker, Please Stop Emailing Me
Hi All! I had a really wonderful brunch this past weekend and we got into the topic of when/how we prefer emails/chats/etc in the workplace. (And in dating, but that’s for a different type of blog 😉 ). It also fell in line with a Monster article that was published last week on how we should communicate on our various platforms. Let me start off to just explain. I hate email. I’m a senior project manager for graphic design and branding firm and the number of emails I receive a day simply lends itself to items being lost in the shuffle of life. I worked out a system for myself, and have worked diligently with my teams as well on some of what I outline below. This way, as a team, we’re all greatly reducing our email overload and our jobs are moving past an email-only world. Now we even understand the value of gasp, getting up and just talking to each other! I wanted to share some of the rules I follow in order to maintain sanity in my day-to-day life.
Email is Good for:
- Bulleted lists of questions or needs
- Meeting recaps with next steps
- Task-oriented emails (with people called out in bold)
- Project recaps, or “What You Missed Last Week”
- Consensus emails, i.e. “The team agreed on x, y, z”
Email is Bad for:
- Long-winded emails filled with questions/concerns and lack of action
- Cc’ing people just so they are “aware”
- Back-and-forth call and responses
- Multiple subjects in one email, or, multiple email chains for one subject
Chat is Good for:
- Quick questions
- Follow-up on specific needs
- Finding consensus on a topic
- Chatting about fun stuff
Chat is Bad for:
- Bulleted lists of questions or needs
- Task-oriented notes
- Project recaps
- Multiple subjects
- Long-winded comments/notes
- Trash-talking (but you knew that, right?)
Phone/In-Person is Good for:
- Professional or quick check-ins
- Finding people who work in “flow”mode and rarely check email or chat systems
- Consensus building
- Off-color conversations, aka mild trash talking
- Emergencies
- Pleasant conversations and rapport building
Phone/In-Person is Bad for:
- Multiple needs
- Confusing requests
- Items that require more than one person to weigh in
Curious how other people make their lives a little less-email-heavy, but this is what I do!
Credits: Headache designed by Ed Harrison from the Noun Project, @iconmonstr
