Write Email with Mobile Readers in Mind

Because I am on the road a lot, I read a lot of email on my phone. In fact, I will often scan an email on my watch before deciding whether it's even worth getting the phone out to read it.

Too often, people treat email like it is the electronic equivalent of a letter. They will put flowery language up front, ask about the kids, etc. I'm not saying that there is no place for that in email, but LifeHacker is absolutely right. If you want to ensure your email gets read, make your point or ensure the you grab the reader's attention in the first line.

Pay attention the next time you get email on your phone. Notice how little of the message you actually see. If you don't have some of the important stuff up front, it might not ever be opened by those of us who rely on our phones for email.

What about the subject line, you ask? I find subject lines to be helpful, but lengthy subject lines can get cut off sometimes. Focus on that opening line. Ask about the kids later.

Use Rules and Assign Policies to Help Control Your List Email

List emails can be a tremendous waste of time if you let them. I'm on a number of different lists, and if I tried to read the emails as they came in every time, I'm not sure I'd be very productive. Rarely, if ever, has anything requiring my personal and immediate action come to me through a lists, and so, I see no reason for them to cloud up my main email inbox.

Instead, I have a folder for each list and use Outlook's rules to send all email from the list to the folder automatically. If there is an issue I'm particularly interested in following, I will modify the rule and add an exception so that the email doesn't go in that box. For example, I have a standing exception for any email where my name is specifically mentioned in the body of the email. This way, those emails show up in my main inbox, and since they're there instead of the usual place, I know there is probably some reason I need to pay more attention to it.

Another exception I have for my list email is if it is an invitation, which I do occasionally get. Those get through to the main inbox.

Once I have them all in their folder, I assign a policy to the entire folder. I have the folder only keep items for 30 days. After that, the emails are automatically deleted. Why? Otherwise, you end up with an unwieldy folder of stale emails. Additionally, if I haven't read the email within 30 days and am that far behind, the amount of unopened email in the folder will become too large for me to even want to try to read it.

This isn't about storage space or anything like that. It's about efficiency. If you have a lot of pointless email in your folders, it can slow down searches and make it harder to sort through search results. Plus, if you have 4000 unread emails, it can act as a mental barrier to not reading email.

I've found that this combination of rules and policies makes it much easier to sort my email in the main inbox and makes getting through to the important stuff easier.

DON'T LET YOURSELF DROWN IN EMAIL

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve had several days out of the office preparing for the arrival of and then enjoying my new son. Additionally, I’ve been working in a satellite office without internet connectivity. While I’ve tried to stay on top of my email on my phone, checking, and more importantly, deleting emails have taken a backseat to changing diapers.

As a result, I sit looking at an email inbox with 804 items in it, most read, but some not. I feel anxious frustrated by it. Some of you will say, “what’s the big deal? I’ve got 5 times that number in my inbox and not all of them are marked as read.”

I’m anxious about it because that is the biggest that number has been in more than three years. Typically, if I have more than 20 items in my inbox, I start getting antsy. To have 804 is downright scary for me.

See, email can quickly overwhelm us. We sign up for so many listservs and get a lot of unsolicited email, that the important stuff can get buried. Emails about court deadlines are sandwiched between that bar newsletter you keep meaning to get to and the reminder that the office potluck is on Thursday. Every moment we devote to reading the garbage and wading through it to find the important stuff takes away from actually doing real work.

A couple years ago, I read about inbox zero, and I try to adhere to some of it’s principles. If you’re unfamiliar with it, I encourage you to check it out here. I use a modified form that works for me.

I try to touch any given email only once if at all possible. If I skim the email and it is nothing I'm interested in, I hit the delete key right then. Why keep garbage? I am confident that 85% of the items in my inbox fall into this category. I'm ruthless with the delete key. If it was truly something important, there will likely be a follow up email, and I can always retrieve it from the trash can later if necessary.

If the email is something I can respond to in two minutes or less, I respond to it immediately and put it in the appropriate folder, if one exists. Best to get these tasks out of the way immediately.

If upon skimming the email there is no clear call for action, but it is something that I want to maybe read later, I move it to a folder I have labeled "Rainy Day Reading". This is for things I find interesting but aren't at the top of my priority list. More importantly, I have an auto delete policy in place. Anything in the folder that is more than 30 days old is automatically deleted. If I haven't gotten to it in 30 days, it must not have been that interesting. A lot of emails not immediately deleted wind up in this folder. And it is amazing how few are actually read later and just get deleted automatically.

Now we are down to that 5% of emails that I actually have to do something with. If they can't be done in two minutes and it is not so urgent that I have to stop what I'm doing now, they get flagged and I assign a due date for them. This way they show up in my Outlook task list. Then, they get moved to the "To Do" folder.

This doesn't have to be a time consuming process. I will set myself a time limit of 20 minutes this afternoon to clear out my inbox. This will be more than enough time to quickly sort the wheat from the chaff. Knowing I can't linger on emails helps me to be more liberal with the delete key, which really is the appropriate response for most email.

In this way, my inbox remains empty. I try to empty it before the end of every day, and am going to get back on that horse. If you've never experienced it, seeing an empty inbox is very satisfying. I also find that I am less stressed as a result. 

I highly encourage you to get your email under control. Whatever system you use, you will find the rewards to be great. And you will be happy that email no longer rules your day.