E-Mail and Productivity

As the use or "misuse" of e-mail continues to grow the impact on employee productivity has also grown but not necessarily for the better.

Used effectively e-mail is an essential business tool that is universally recognized for raising productivity. Used incorrectly it can cause great productivity drain.

Here are several tips to help your e-mail to be a clear boost to productivity.

Control Spam

Uncontrolled spam is a huge drain on productivity. I was working with a client a few days ago that had in the previous 18 hours received 575 e-mails. Less than 10% of them were legitimate business. This person spends over 30 minutes a day cleaning out her mail box. With a spam blocker in place she has begun to recover 3 work weeks a year.

$20 Billion is also the amount that the world spends each year in lost productivity and technology as a direct result of SPAM, or Unsolicited Commercial Email." BASEX

Junk e-mail blocks reading of legitimate e-mail, often carry viruses or spy-ware and are just a nuisance.

Following some basic rules can reduce or eliminate spam.

Stop spam with solutions like ChoiceMail, Microsft Recommend Virus and Spam Blockers for Exchange Server, Barracuda Spam Firewalls or Norton 360.

We use Choice Mail at SWK and find it to be an effective solution.

Avoid Spam by having alternate e-mail addresses. Use this e-mail address instead of your primary address when signing up for services or requesting information. Never give your e-mail address to a web site that you don't know has dependable privacy policies. Watch out for check boxes that give permission to spam you.

Here is a very comprehensive list of spam avoidance tips.

Organize and Optimize Your Use Of E-Mail

It is a proven fact that constantly checking and responding to e-mails, Instant Messages or Text Messages drains productivity.

One organization reclaimed productivity by directing staff to open e-mail only at 10:00 and 1:00 each day. Taking an hour to plan the day and get started on proactive work is a good way to start your morning. E-mails tend to throw us into re-active mode.

Another company set up Auto-responders notifying senders that e-mail would be checked and answered at 11:00 and 4:00.

Read the Tim Ferriss article How To Check E-Mail Twice a Day

Another idea is to use Outlook Rules to automatically sort e-mails into folders that allow you to manage more efficiently. Microsoft Tutorial

Merlin Mann, editor and founder of 43 Folders offers up great tips on managing e-mail here: Five Fast Email Productivity Tips and Quick Tips on Processing Your Email Inbox.

With these tips you can gain back a lot of time.

Would you like help? Call Matt Hahn at SWK 973-758-6106.

By Peter Conway, SWK Technologies, Inc.