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Home » Business And Finance Articles » Overwhelmed By The Daily Deluge Of Email

Overwhelmed by the Daily Deluge of E-mail?

Part of being an effective marketer is being an effective time manager. The little time suckers in our workday can collectively add up to a LOT of time taken away from our core functions and billable work. One of the biggest time drainer is our In-Box.

Tame your e-mail beast by mastering the art of email management. This will reduce your stress, streamline your workflow, and improve your efficiency. Here are some strategies you can implement:

1. Avoid Constant Interruptions: Turn off your auto send/receive or set it to a reasonable timeframe, like every hour or two. Some people find they are most productive at certain times of the day - like early morning. If this is true for you, regularly block out that chunk time and DON'T check your e-mails until afterwards. You will be amazed at what a huge difference this one change will make in your workday.

2. Respond with Brevity: If possible, reply with an action-oriented 1-2 line response. Always keep your messages under 10 sentences. Communicate your main point in the first sentence or two. Then delete or file the email, and get back to work!

3. Use Proper Grammar: Do NOT bypass standard grammar and punctuation. Create a well-written message. It will save your recipient time, as well.

4. Break Up Topics: Use separate paragraphs or bulleted lists when possible to save time for your reader. Get in the habit of doing this and people will tend to respond in kind. It saves time when you can scan lists quickly.

5. Use the Subject Line: Make sure you are very descriptive in the subject line. Or, use the subject line for the entire message: Meet 10:00, 5/30 Ok? You can establish agreements within your office to use codes in the subject line like NT for No Text and NRN for No Reply Needed.

6. Don't Break for E-zines: If you are like me, you get a lot of professional e-zines. These are interesting and important for our continuing education. However, they can also serve as easy distractions from the task at hand. Instead of taking the time to read each one as it is received, stick them all in a folder labeled "Ezines" and reserve time each day or even each week to read them all at once.

ACTION ITEM: This week, take 3 steps toward taming your e-mail monster! Ideas: Talk to your office and set up agreements with internal e-mails. Create e-mail folders that will help you organize your inbox. Reset your auto email send/receive.

I hope this gives you some great ideas to reduce inbox clutter and streamline your communications. I'm not a natural organizer, but the more I create new time management habits, the more I find time for creativity and my core business strategies.

Work smarter, not harder!

Copyright 2005 Kinesis, Inc.

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

Modern Managers Need Leadership Skills

Managers and Leaders â€" Are They Synonyms?

A manager is the person in charge of commanding and running a business or a project. Leadership deals with the interpersonal relations. Managing means planning, developing and organizing. In the contemporary society leadership qualities along with managing abilities are a must.

If there is one thing I've learnt during my career as a military TV redactor in the Romanian Ministry of Defence, that is that leadership has never been simple. In this day and age even military leaders are confronted with many challenges including bureaucracy, media influence, internationalisation and changes of cultural and economic patterns.

One thing is so far clear: a leader is not a ruler or a despot. His role is to guide, to inspire, to communicate, to build trust and to direct toward the achievement of goals.

Many managers consider themselves leaders. Well, that's not entirely accurate. When a manager is able to persuade a team to complete some objectives without forcing his authority, then he is demonstrating leadership qualities. While a leader can be a manager, a manager is not necessary a leader.

Make no confusions: to be in charge of a team doesn't automatically make you a leader. People choose their leaders naturally, based on personal feelings, most of the times subjective evaluations. There are some traditional patterns people look for in a leader: physical appearance, social and personal traits. Studies prove that tall and handsome men make charismatic leaders. Education plays a significant role, but not as important as individual qualities such as charisma, magnetism, reputation and tact. Such leaders have to be self confident and able to listen to their followers. While physical appearance cannot be changed, but slightly improved with the right clothing, other behaviours can be trained.

Leadership Training â€" Is That Really Necessary?

My answer is yes. Leaders are made, not born. There is no such a thing as a natural born leader â€" this is just a label used to describe a person able to influence others easily. Because everyone has a natural born capacity to lead, becoming a leader is not so difficult. To achieve this goal training and learning go hand in hand.

What should a leader learn? The art of communicating a message across effectively and clearly is a vital part of being a successful leader. Speaking is not enough. Important factors, such as understanding and using body language, listening and writing, fuse to generate the lifeblood of good communication.

A leader should learn to overcome other's people barriers when delivering a message. There are three basic rules to achieve this goal: be clear in your mind, deliver the message in plain language and make sure that the idea has been understood.

Cultural differences can make it difficult for some people to communicate effectively. Germans and Nordics are more restrained in gesture than many Latin nations, while Americans and Australians can say exactly what they mean. A "be yourself" approach can work â€" there is no better marketing than telling the truth. Be honest, but not impolite. Do not try to be anyone else or copy another one's style.

You've heard that often: first impressions are very important. In business and media that's a proven theory: the first five seconds of a meeting are more important than the next ten minutes. A faultless look, even if informal, makes always a good impact: matching decent colours, impeccable shoes and garments, a proper haircut and no exaggeration with cologne will not err.

Certainly there's more to leadership training than one can write in a short article: from learning the secret of clear communication both within the team and with the media, to understanding and using gestures; from learning how to listen to recognizing and overcoming prejudice (ground rule: think about the words you hear, not the person saying them); from reading efficiently to taking notes and improving memory; from using the phone to writing letters and much more.

Because the contemporary society is continuously changing, modern managers and leaders need to improve their skills constantly and to gather knowledge vital for their organizations.

Leadership Theories

In 1960 the Douglas McGregor described two behavioural theories, "Theory X" and "Theory Y", in his book "The Human Side of Enterprise".

Theory X represents the idea of ruling by controlling, the so-called "stick and carrot" philosophy of management. According to Freud people are naturally lazy and need to be controlled or punished in order to work effectively. Some managers do believe these affirmations. In the modern society such approaches lead nowhere: employees get frustrated, feel uncomfortable at work, tend to introvert, perform just because they are afraid of some consequences and not because they are motivated. As long as this theory â€" you can find a better description of it on the web by typing Douglas McGregor in any search engine â€" will influence managers, the real potentials of an employee will remain hidden.

McGregor's Theory Y gives prominence to communication and human interrelations. Managers who create a harmonious working environment motivate workers. The idea is that a satisfied team will achieve goals faster and more proficient than a frustrated, fearful team. Adepts of the Theory Y give confidence to their followers, know how to listen and how to reward them and support initiative and creativity. The individual and organizational goals can be integrated. This is the kind of approach the modern society longs for. People need to be respected and valued for what and who they are. Although there are common traits for us all, it's a wrong approach to generalize.

Why Motivate?

Treat your workers as individuals and soon you will be able to harvest the fruits of their work. And don't forget: a "thank you, well done" motivates and wins a heart and a won heart means a step towards attaining loyalty.

To motivate means to understand human nature. Motivation is an essential factor in the existence and success of a company and it is a skill which must be learnt. Forget the idea that money is the prime motivator. Nowadays security is a major stimulus: unemployment determines workers to appreciate the security of a job. Well, sure employees will act positively to a raise or a money prize, but if they don't like the job, the company or (yes!) the manager is unlikely that they will perform at their best.

Conclusion

As people have a normal predisposition to follow certain attitudes, modern managers and leaders should be careful and conduct by example. In order to avoid the perception of inconsistency within the management team, training their leadership skills is a necessity.