E-Mail Survival Guide, by Katie Muldoon

An E-mail Survival Guide

BY KATIE MULDOON

NOT SO VERY LONG AGO, we complained about the volume of voice mail. Now we whine about too much e-mail. I overheard a fellow airline passenger noting that he had 600 e-mails waiting for him after returning to the office from a two-day trip. Here's what you can do to make the going easier.

Use more than one screen name. Most e-mail systems allow you to use several names; use the “master” name as the one that collects the advertising mail. Use this user name for online research and other areas where your name will be captured for future soliciting. Don't use this name for your regular correspondence with business associates or friends.

Ask senders to keep the subject line brief; they should indicate the topic as well as how urgent it is. Some paper memos have a place where you can indicate whether your message is urgent, and when or if a reply is due. If the e-mail's subject line is short to begin with, a word or two can be added that will help a recipient know how quickly the information you're sending needs to be looked at and responded to. (Of course, some software allows you to prioritize messages with special icons or tags.) In any case, don't overuse such terms as “Urgent.”

Be specific. Because e-mail seems less formal than printed correspondence, there's a tendency to write like we speak. This is a document just like any other; approach it by getting right to the point.

Make it easy to skim. Break up paragraphs into a few sentences and use an easy-to-read typeface. Don't go with all caps or just lowercase. Use spell check and proofread carefully, even if it means printing and proofing from a hard copy. I have too often been guilty of sending a second e-mail with the heading “Read this one” when the hastily sent original had errors. My new rule is Print, proof, send.

Read e-mail at scheduled times per day. Set aside time when you can read your e-mail in one time block rather than getting interrupted. This may be one of the toughest suggestions to follow — if you're like me, e-mail is a wonderful diversion from “real work.”

If you do set a time for your e-mail reading, let your regular recipients know that's your system. As most people hold to the unrealistic belief that e-mail should be answered instantly, this will take some pressure off you while still allowing senders to understand that your e-mail turnaround may be hours, not minutes.

Don't use e-mail as a cover-your-a — method. Too often, e-mails are used as a way to show that the sender is busy. Additionally, some seem to feel that this method of communication means that everyone copied is up to date on what's happening as well as what their involvement should be. It doesn't work.

If you want other team members to know where things stand and what they should be doing, write a memo about exactly those subjects, with indications of who's doing what and when. Simply copying someone and assuming that action will follow not only clogs the mail system, but is a disaster waiting to happen.

Liz Kislik, president of Liz Kislik Associates, a Valley Stream, NY-based consultancy that works with organizations to enhance customer satisfaction, employee success and business stability, points out another reason not to copy everyone: They most likely will copy you back. She also alerts e-mailers to be careful about hitting that “Reply to all” button when they only need to respond to the sender.

Clean up your forwards. A simple cut-and-paste eliminates all those annoying headers. If you don't cut off the headers, you expose a portion of your e-address book to all.

Try using filters. Many e-mail programs offer filtering features. For instance, Eudora organizes e-mail by automatically transferring messages from, say, your friends or co-workers to a particular mailbox, using a color label to make those messages easy to spot. Eudora also allows you to put advertising mail into a folder for later review. Organize projects, family news and business updates in folders whose content is determined by what you tell the filtering process to look for.

Some e-mail software programs have auto-responders that reply to certain types of e-mail based on how you've set up your filters. While it's a big time-saver, be careful you don't send the wrong message to the wrong person.

Check privacy policies. Another good suggestion from Liz Kislik: If you don't want regular mail — even from companies you deal with — or solicitations from businesses that share lists, mark the opt-out box or take a minute to send an e-mail to opt out. If you forget to do this, follow the “unsubscribe” instructions that every responsible mailer includes.

Limit e-mail storage. While this may sound like an extreme approach, some companies are already limiting e-mail storage space and others may follow. Again Liz has a potential solution: Delete the e-mails you've handled completely; if you need to keep a record (and I believe you should), print one out.

Alternatively, consider collecting your e-mails in appropriate folders and moving them to your backup hard drive. Hence they are deleted from your e-mail program but are still available if you need to refer to them.