I think people lament too much about email. The reality is that for many of us, email is our work.
It’s easy. Everyone knows how to manage their own email without learning a new system. It’s how information moves to action.
It’s not going away and my encouragement is that you embrace it and become good at email. Have a growth mindset. Use it effectively so you can improve your results.
Here are a few tips to use immediately within your busy onslaught of a week since it’s always going to be a part of your work and something worth becoming good at:
- Summarize meetings: Take your notes and any actions and send a summary email right after your calls or meetings. You now have a record and it’s extremely easy to reference any decisions or actions. No CRM required.
- Check your grammar and spelling: We have these tools built in now. A misspelling simply distracts the recipient and lowers your brand in their mind. Show you care and do a quick check before sending.
- Use lists: I like numbered lists for any actions or decisions. Make it clear about what happens next. Lead. Clarify. Act.
- Get to a ZeroInbox. This is not hard. It’s a habit. Most of what you read is informational. Archive those emails. Move others to a folder that need an action or response.
- Be fast. Yes, you can increase your speed. You have to embrace decision making and action. Be a person known for action. The world responds to action. You have to want to be fast and decisive first, however. Hiding or accepting slowness doesn’t cut it in our hyper-competitive world of choices. We can choose to work with people that are efficient too easily, otherwise.
There’s definitely more, but some habits and a commitment to being excellent keeps you in the game, especially in the tool most of us are spending our time in on any given workday.
Do you want to become better with better results in email?