To think everyone who uses email in their work should learn how to manage it effectively?

[FireworksAndSparklers]

I'm so tired of colleagues and managers never replying to emails until days (sometimes weeks) later, usually with the excuse that they have hundreds of unread emails backed up.

I just think there's no need for it. Find a strategy that works for you and do it. Don't just let your emails back up without dealing with them. It's rude and it's counter-productive for both your own efficiency and that of the people you work with.

I know my own strategy wouldn't work for everyone, but I would never just ignore an important part of my work because I haven't taken the time to figure out a system for managing it.

AIBU or is it ok to just let your emails build up and up and leave correspondents hanging for ever for responses?

600 unread? If so, why wouldn't you just read and delete/ ignore if you're not going to reply?

Or do you just mean you have 600 read emails sitting in your inbox?

I don't tend to delete read/ dealt with emails from my inbox, but I never leave emails sat unread.

I don't get 200 or even 100 emails a day - some of the traffic gets diverted into Chat discussions in MS Teams, which helps.

General email etiquette, considering the recipient:

If I need a response I mark the email Subject field [Action Needed] or [Decision Needed] to differentiate from [No Action - FYI]. I have 100% success rate with this approach.

The FYI emails are used judiciously, only when the information adds value - I ask myself if the recipients will benefit from the information and if it's borderline I don't send the email as I don't want to clog up people in-box.

Use of bullet points, short sentences and paragraphs maximises the chance of people being motivated to speed-read. I also highlight at the top where a decision or action is needed. stream of consciousness blocks of text with no paragraphs makes it far less likely the reader will wade through it.

the Military are great at succinct to-the-point communication - I enjoy reading their emails and documents because the format, structure and intent is about getting their point across quickly. They use BLUF (Bottom Line Up First) to summarise the priority message, then give some detail below.

there's no single "system" that works for everyone, it depends on the business need, industry or corporate culture as to how much importance people give to email comms, and how people use email.

I just can't believe someone can possibly doing their job properly if they are not even opening those emails and letting them pile up.

I agree. It begs the question how an organisation can be effective if their employees have such a cavalier attitude and they're able to just shrug and say they haven't got round to it because they have 200 emails a day. It isn't a competition or a badge of honour.

It isn't effective. Email stopped being an effective method of communication in a large organisation years ago. Most companies cover the important stuff in meetings. Internal emails are largely a waste of time.

Depends on your organisation and workload surely. I used to pride myself on answering emails promptly, like the same day.

then half my department have gone and not been replaced, my workload has doubled, I’m working 60 hour weeks and getting over 100 emails a day while I’m also expected to be teaching or in meetings 8 hours a day.

i have an out of office auto reply on informing people their email may not be dealt with due to my workload.

colleagues have similar, one has an out of office reply on saying they are prioritising their mental health and do not look at their emails which always makes me laugh.

I actually don’t care anymore. I’m probably not doing my job properly but that’s not my fault and if managers have a problem then they hire more staff. 🤷‍♀️

It isn't effective. Email stopped being an effective method of communication in a large organisation years ago. Most companies cover the important stuff in meetings. Internal emails are largely a waste of time.

Spot on.

I suspect they think 'oh shit, here's another bloody email from @FireworksAndSparklers wittering on about how amazing her system is and how useless I am, I'll look at that on the 32nd of the month'

You're trying to solve the wrong problem. This isn't about people not managing their emails, it's about people not affording you the priority you feel you should have. No organisational system is going to prevent them getting lots of emails, and having to answer some before others. They're just not choosing yours early enough for you. If this is causing problems in your role then you need to make the relevant managers aware, theirs and/or yours, and they can tell them to prioritise differently. If you are the manager then tell them yourself to prioritise your emails and/or look at ways if reducing traffic to their in boxes.

what kind of complaint is this? My job involves a lot of thinking and writing and moving things forward by developing an actual plan. I can’t do that and reply to every email that comes in randomly from an org of 800 ppl within 24 hours. It just totally depends what your actual job objectives are.

This - this exactly :) much better put than me.

The people who justify their inbox piling up because they get 100s of emails a day. Do you just assume that the rest of us don’t? I also think is highly unprofessional to leave someone without an answer for weeks however petty you think the question is.

I have one at the moment where someone else has something a client needs. I emailed them because they work in an office about 100 miles away. I have followed it up once with an IM once in those 10 days. I assume they have decided like some of the people here that I am annoying and so are ignoring me whereas the reality is our client is getting shit service. I will email again later and copy in my boss because how else can you force someone to do their bloody job. They probably are busy but given our fees come from clients they need to learn to prioritise better.

Hilarious that you think people like the drama of not answering emails but here you are being dramatic and starting a thread about it.

Here is a thought perhaps they do have your system of filing the non urgent emails with an appropriate deadline. The fact is yours fall into the non urgent category with a 6 week deadline that they don't find important enough to respond to.

Are you the sort who just sends emails as solutions rather than actually picks up a phone or talks to people or just gets on and actions something.

Yep @Eightfour client comes first in fee paying businesses….they need to know where their bread is buttered and sort out their priorities!

I think a lot of people are demotivated and don’t care these days. Some for very good reasons as explained by others- as they’ve been left high and dry covering for other jobs and seeing increased demand (eg nhs). Clearly others are prioritising their job objectives and cutting out low impact busy work- which is the right thing to do.

But I do think there is a growing sense of entitlement/ self importance among our workforce which is another nail in the coffin for our country’s terminal decline. Ultimately we will all pay for the low productivity of our economy.

Pointless emails clutter up my inbox.

Internal newsletters, departmental announcements, the reply all nutjobs, system changes for systems I don't use, building issues in buildings I don't work in, meeting changes for meetings I don't go to, people I don't know leaving or having a birthday or having baby, project updates that I don't need, training courses I don't need or want to go on, conferences I don't want to attend, requests for feedback on stuff I don't know or care about, requests for information I don't have, internal vacancies I don't want to apply for....

And on and on it goes. I do not have time to wade through all that shit to get to the stuff that I need. Pick up the phone or put a 10 minute meeting in my diary. It takes that long to send me an email that I will likely never read.

is it just emails or are they lax in other areas? I try and reply to emails quickly but I’m a terrible (but very aware and trying to reform) people pleaser and don’t want anyone to think badly of me. Perhaps they know that most jobs are all bollocks anyway and are treating the emails with that in mind!

@Eightfour call them?

I have a system:

i see email like social media.

i observe it like a stream.

i select what’s important and that becomes or is part of projects I work on for long periods.

i glance through and ignore the high volume of FYI and low grade requests for my expertise as if I dealt with them as you suggest I would not have time to deal with the high value things.

it works for me because

• the nature of my role is ill always get more requests and inquiries than I can deal with.
• it is my job not just to prioritise between incoming requests but also create space for high value pro active projects to happen
• im ND and find the flood of incoming emails over whelming.

if I tried to follow your system I’d spend all my time on low value reactive stuff and still not be ahead of the game.

and it only feeds the beast. Reply to questions they can solve themselves and all they learn is to be lazy and ask you next time.

i am pretty good at picking out the high value stuff though. And if I miss something people will find other channels to get me engaged

i don’t even attempt to read emails when I come back from a holiday now.

im senior so reluctantly accept I’m engaged in important stuff even when off on leave.

or my team will tell me about it when I return.

i do a quick skim and move on.

i have 1000s of unread un responded to emails

and I am absolutely not sorry.

it works for me

@GinForBreakfast - funnily enough I did think of that. Straight to voicemail, that was when I sent the IM. They are definitely in just oh so very busy obviously 🙄

https://calnewport.com/its-okay-to-be-bad-at-e-mail/

@Eightfour I'd argue that your workplace has shit processes then. If it's client critical work it should be in a tracked workflow with visibility over where the brakes and bottlenecks are. Relying on email is very 1990s. The world has evolved and there are many more smart ways to get tasks through the system.

@GinForBreakfast - they really don’t given they are one of the largest in the world. There is just a subset of people who are very good at self promotion but actually shit at being effective and efficient. Not everyone is good at their actual job. She is one of them.

I struggle with time to actually do them. They never wait weeks but sometimes days
My job is contact centre so calls all day with around 10 seconds between them
I can't do emails while I'm on the phone and I'm never not on the phone
Between that and teams constant messages it's headache inducing

@Eightfour but do you sit at a desk/computer all day with more ability to answer emails? Maybe that’s the focus of your job? It isn’t the focus of mine. If you were teaching in a classroom 6-7 hours a day I don’t see how you could also answer hundreds of emails. 🤷🏻‍♀️. I’ve decided I’m not answering emails in the evening anymore. Because the more I do that the more management will let me. They’re never going to recruit someone else if I’m doing the work of two. Why should I burn myself out due to their arbitrary budgets?

I have mine set up so that emails from key people or key subjects are filtered into named folders so that they don't get lost in all the chatter. Everything else I will skim quickly, flag what I need to look properly and and I'll get to it when I get to it once my more important emails are taken care of. Maybe you've been flagged, OP.

I manage by emails very effectively for me, my role and tide that need a response.

That doesn't seem to be your definition of effectively.

If you are waiting on multiple responses, then maybe there's a reason.

I'm currently waiting on 2 - one just a password, the other a response to queries. Neither are internal.