Don’t let your focus be fragmented. Go from inbox overwhelm to an inbox oasis every single day by following these 3 steps.
The First Task Your EA Should Tackle
Handing off email management to your EA frees you up for high-leverage work. Here are 2 tactics to make this a smooth and successful process.
What Most People Get Wrong About Inbox Zero
Email is indispensable. But it can feel like a necessary evil for a lot of us. Our inboxes are flooded with information and requests from customers, clients, coworkers, friends, and family. Not to mention all the spam, BACN, and random junk. I’ve seen inboxes with tens of thousands of emails—hundreds, even thousands unread. People feel […]
3 Ways Email Can Sabotage Your Leadership
When I was the CEO at Thomas Nelson, one of our authors was frustrated. In response to a disappointing sales report, he fired off a blistering email to one of our divisional leaders. He complained about poor results. He criticized the sales strategy and our failure to execute. Worse, he challenged the leader’s intelligence, competence, […]
Why I Changed My Email Newsletter Strategy
I decided to change my email newsletter strategy last month. For years, I sent the entire blog post in the body of the email. We used a custom template that included many of the design elements from my blog. For a long time, that served us well. But we are no longer doing that. Instead, […]
What the Success of Slack Can Teach Us about Creating Winning Products
I love watching people succeed, especially if I can learn something I can apply in my own life and share with you. That’s why I’m excited about what I learned from watching Slack’s success this year. Slack is a communications tool that enables natural and effective team collaboration. The company, started by Stewart Butterfield, the […]
How I Cut My Email Load by 83% in Less Than a Week
Lousy communications is one of the biggest challenges any team faces. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost files, even whole conversation threads, in email. And no one likes triaging an inbox, even with a good system. So what if we had a better solution? We do, thanks to a team of online […]
Declare Email Bankruptcy and Get a Fresh Start
You know it’s time to declare email bankruptcy when you are experiencing the following four symptoms. If this is true of you, I provide a seven-step strategy for wiping the digital slate clean and starting over.
Yes, You Can Stay on Top of E-mail
But it is really possible to get caught up on your email and stay caught up? Yes. I’ve done so for years, even as the demands of my job have increased. I’m not bragging; it’s just a fact. But I should warn you: there is no easy fix. Taking control of your inbox means changing your behavior. You must be willing to make the investment.
10 Strategies for Getting a Faster Response to Your Email
Not everyone thinks it is important to respond quickly to email. How do you get them to respond to you in a timely manner? Here are ten strategies.
Before You Send That Angry E-mail
I have fired off my share of angry letters and e-mail. Honestly, I cannot think of a single time when these communiques had a positive effect. Here are six steps you can take when you are tempted.
How to Email Your Documents Directly to Evernote
There are a number of ways to get your content into Evernote. However, the most useful one for me is the email-to-Evernote feature. Here are five steps for getting started.
How to Get a Faster Response to Your E-mail
I often hear people complain about how long it takes to get a response to e-mail. Sometimes, to be sure, it is because the person they are waiting on is inept. The simplest request gets lost in a sea of unprocessed e-mail.
Email Etiquette 101
The use of e-mail in corporate culture is pervasive. I rarely get letters any more. Even phone calls are uncommon. But I get scores of e-mail messages every day. Yet, I am continually surprised at how people often misuse this medium. Therefore, I would like to humbly offer up 18 suggestions for better e-mail communication and etiquette:
Upgrading My Standard Messages
I thought it was about time to overhaul my standard voice mail greetings. I’ve been following the same procedure for several years. I generally update my office phone message daily. I liked providing the current date to let callers know that I was checking my messages regularly. But that has proven to be more trouble than it’s worth.