| Learn to Reduce Email Overload By 54% | | | | the right time. For instance, Organizational Consistency |
| E-mail is Making You Stupid! At least, that's what a | | | | includes things like eliminating multitasking, scheduling an |
| headline in the March edition of Entrepreneur Magazine | | | | email appointment, and not opening your email program |
| claims. But that's not all... a survey from the Radicall | | | | more than four times a day. When you do open your |
| Group says we are in for a 42% increase in e-mail | | | | inbox to check your mail, spend no more than 20 |
| traffic between 2010 and 2012. If you think you get too | | | | minutes per session so you create a sense of |
| much email now, the survey projects that we'll go from | | | | urgency to Decide, Do, Delegate, or Delete. |
| 294 billion pieces of e-mail traffic to 419 billion. We're all | | | | Other proactive approaches and important behavior |
| drowning in a tsunami of e-mail overload! | | | | changes include making sure your software does not |
| The article in Entrepreneur Magazine put this issue into | | | | automatically open to the inbox folder and turning off |
| a perspective that every organization in the world can | | | | e-mail alarms. In addition, we teach the "four D" formula |
| understand. The cost to performance resulting from | | | | for managing e-mail overload. The four D concepts |
| this tsunami of e-mail (which I call the "digital deluge" in | | | | include understanding how to Decide when (date |
| terms of stress and hard dollars) is extraordinary. | | | | activate for the future), Do it now, Delegate it |
| Here's an example of the cost of this phenomena | | | | (collaborate or share the work), or Delete/Dump it. |
| from the article: "Computer chip giant Intel, for one, has | | | | An important way to reinforce behavior change is to |
| estimated that e-mail overload can cost large | | | | have a clear path of best process behaviors mapped |
| companies as much as $1 billion a year in lost | | | | out. We use ten best practice processes that become |
| employee productivity. The intrusions are constant: | | | | routine behavior changes to manage the e-mail |
| each day a typical office employee checks e-mail 50 | | | | overload beast. Here's a sample of a few of those |
| times and uses instant messaging 77 times, according | | | | top ten best practices. Number one on the behavior |
| to Rescue Time, a time management software | | | | change list is to convert your e-mails into tasks, |
| development company." | | | | appointments, and contacts. You can do this by |
| We, using the system, can reduce e-mail overload by | | | | learning how to right'click, drag-and-drop, and insert |
| a whopping 54%. This figure is proven by post survey | | | | hyperlinks. |
| averages of 225 client companies worldwide and over | | | | The next process, and probably the most important, is |
| 2,000 individuals who participated in our training for | | | | learning how to clear your inbox every day. Don't use |
| using tool boxes such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus | | | | the inbox as a catch-all folder for everything you need |
| Notes. In the state of Alabama we were able to | | | | to work on. This one new behavior, habit, routine or |
| improve a global manufacture's e-mail overload | | | | process creates controversy because some people |
| problem by improving results over 66%! | | | | we work with can have 1,000 or more e-mails in their |
| We employ a systemic process to accomplish such | | | | inbox. The problem with having all of your e-mails |
| outstanding successes for our clients. Some of the | | | | stored this way is one day the corporate IT |
| strategies we deploy to beat this e-mail "digital deluge" | | | | department is going to clean out the servers to free |
| is first to work on changing behaviors. Most | | | | up disk space and all that data will be wiped out. |
| interventions like this fail because too much focus is on | | | | These software tools were designed to be contact |
| the tool and software. More focus must be placed on | | | | sensitive, so learn how to use folders like Contacts to |
| an individual's behavior, and most importantly, on the | | | | store and activate tasks or appointments for follow up, |
| team or organization's behavior. We take a holistic | | | | and how to insert attachments with hyperlinks for |
| approach and work to change the team or | | | | future recall. The great thing about using this process is |
| organization's behavior to create "organizational | | | | that you can also use the Activities tab in Contacts to |
| consistency." | | | | get a list of every single activity you had with each of |
| "Organizational Consistency" simply means using the | | | | your contacts. This is a little known tip that benefits |
| software tools proactively, not reactively. As a result, | | | | many leading organizations. |
| everyone is doing the right thing, for the right reason, at | | | | |