Email

We need to talk about email. I need to talk about email. I tracked this past week and realize that I get approximately 600-800 emails per day. No wonder my to do list is longer than my life span. It’s out of control and the truth is that I spend all my day answering emails instead of doing new initiatives personally and professionally. Not ok.

So, I sat down to figure it out. Then I went to lunch with a friend from work, and he and I figured it out. I’m sure you will agree with our Email Pet Peeve list.

1. Do not send me emails saying “Thx” after I did something you asked. Does that mean I have to send you an email saying, “You’re welcome?”

2. Think carefully about ‘reply to all.’ Do you really need to tell everyone your response to the person’s question, or can you just respond to the person and leave everyone else out? I hate an email thread where someone has emailed me and ten others and all ten reply to me as well and the initial emailer. Email the original emailer and let them pass on your brilliance.

3. Each email should be about one thing. Do not put numerous questions, etc. in an email. If you have more than one question to ask me, pick up the phone. It really is faster. You remember the phone. It sits on your desk waiting for you to reach out and touch someone.

4. Do not send me things you think are clever. Truth be known, unless you are forwarding my blog, I’m not interested and usually I just wonder why you have so much time to forward stupid things. If, however, you are helping build my blog following by forwarding a particularly clever blog of mine, carry on.

5. Gus Levy, the deceased chair and founder of Goldman Sachs told me two really smart things. He said, “Christine, if a memo is longer than a paragraph, you do not understand the topic.” I have tried all through my business career to remember that. Please keep your emails short. He also told me, in case you were wondering, “Christine, if a meeting is more than a half an hour, the right people aren’t in it.”

6. Think about all the information you want to provide so you can avoid the following,

“Wanna have lunch?”

“Sure, what time?”

“Does 12:30 works?”

“No, how is 1?”

“One is good.”

“Where do you want to go?” And, so on.

Instead consider this.

“Do you want to go to lunch? If so, how is 12:30 at Christine’s In and Out. I will meet you there if it works.”

That takes it from seven or more emails to two. Think it through people.

I know I sound bitter. I actually am. I realize that the Internet which was supposed to simplify my life has complicated it big time.

Here are some interesting statistics to make the point.

If email was a country, its 1.4 billion users would make it the largest in the world. Bigger than China, bigger than the populations of the USA and European Union combined.

247 billion emails are sent each day. That’s one email every 0.00000035 seconds. <Christine’s note: Almost half are sent to me, or that’s the way it feels.>

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, some 20 million emails entered cyberspace.

Every second, the world’s email users produce messages equivalent in size to over 16,000 copies of the Complete Works of Shakespeare (assuming a 30KB average email size). <Christine’s note: Not loving this stat. Really, Shakespeare? What does he have to do with it?>

In other words, we are all out of email control.

Here are my new rules for myself for email.

1. I will only touch an email once. I will open it and send it on its way, forward, or delete.

2. I will keep a list during the day of questions for the five people I email the most and call them in the afternoon and ask them the questions by phone. I will keep the call down to five minutes unless they have some fabulous gossip that I can’t resist listening to and confirming that which some wise person or other said to be true. ‘”Cutting someone else down is a false way of elevating yourself.” I know that I sometimes elevate myself in this fashion. I am a work in progress.

That’s it. The new Obama Mini Me is back. Lean. Efficient. Never overwhelmed.

Bye.