The Success Report

Recently I wrote a book called recently I wrote a book called "The E-mail Manual". It is the book you should have received when you first started using e-mail. I think if everybody had a copy of this book on their desks and read it before they started using e-mail, there would be a fewer problems and issues with using and managing e-mail.

I intend to put together a number of articles where I extract these tips, ideas and strategies from the book for you to read. Each article will have five different tips and insights. You will notice that these tips and insights are simple, straightforward and useful in helping you manage an ever increasing inbox.

Look out for the remaining articles which cover many of the strategies you'll find in the book. If you do have other strategies that you think would be useful to me to add in my next edition, why not send me an e-mail.

1. Double check who the email is going to

One of the easiest mistakes to make is to send an   email to the wrong person. It is easy to scroll down through the address book and click on a name and hit send only to find out that you ‘shot and missed’ when you selected the email addresses.

This can be embarrassing at best and disastrous if you send confidential information to the wrong person.

2. If you have one or many email addresses, check them often

 The whole idea of email is to stay in touch faster than ‘snail mail’ , so check your business and personal email addresses regularly.

3. Set up an ’Auto Reply’ service when you are away

Have you ever sent an email to someone and received an automated response back? It will be something like ‘I will be out of the office until next Tuesday. If you need urgent assistance please call Sally Smith on (03) 9533-9533’. 

Auto responses are a nice feature because at least you are kept informed as to why you are not hearing from someone you have sent an email to.

Creating an auto responding message before going on annual leave is positive and proactive.

You might also want to consider creating a message if you are going to be unavailable for a couple of hours. This is especially useful if you receive a lot of  Emails. Most people who will send you an email and get back your reply stating that you are out of the office and will be back in the afternoon will at least be clued up to when they might receive a response back from you.

4. Follow the correct usage of grammar and punctuation

 Just because you are writing an email and not a formal letter doesn't mean you can drop the need for writing properly. Whether you are writing an  email or a formal report, good grammar and spelling are essential.

 Glaring mistakes in your style or ability to use the English language throws a dim light on your competency as a professional person. So if you are writing to a customer with a major proposal and fail to use proper grammar, your proposal not only looks sloppy but also appears not very well thought through.

If you feel that you do not have good writing  skills, or you have poor English skills, for goodness sake take a writing course. If you don't know when to use a semi-colon compared to using a colon, then it's time for some revision.

One final Thought

While it might be alright to abbreviate your SMS messages, it's not when you are using Email.

5. Be Careful sending emails in HTML

Most email software gives you the option to send email in plain text or HTML. HTML email allows you to add graphics such as graphic headers and footer. The problem is that HTML Emails and can often get caught by email filters.

Consider using plain text. It means that your Emails have a greater chance of getting through to the people you are sending your messages to.

If you would like to learn how to better manage your e-mail or inbox, why not consider my Zero Inbox training program? This e-mail management course is available in Australia and will soon be available online. You can visit, http://www.success.net.au/seminars/zero-inbox.html to learn more about how to better manage your e-mail and reduce your inbox. Alternatively, you can visit: http://www.zero-inbox.com/

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Is your inbox overflowing? Would you like to feel more in control of your inbox? In this article I will be sharing five strategies from my book, "The E-mail Manual". It is the book you should have received when you first started using e-mail. After you have read these five strategies, why not have a look for the other articles where I cover other ideas and insights about using e-mail more effectively.

6. Learn to type (Properly)

Your ability to type quickly and accurately is your ticket to a more productive day.

If you still ‘hunt and peck’, take some basic lessons in typing or try using some inexpensive ‘learn to type’ software.

7. Make sure your email date and time Stamps are Correct

The date and time stamp are taken from your computer clock so it is important to ensure your computer clock is up to date.

Having the correct time and date on your computer helps those who you are emailing know how long ago you sent the email and if they should give your message priority. You can update your computer clock using the control panel.

8. Email is no place to get nasty

Sarcasm and passive-aggressive conversations don’t work at all well in Email. If you have ever misinterpreted the tone in someone's email you already know the dangers of not being clear and concise with your email messages.

9. Structure a business email like a business letter

Email usually follows general business writing principles. When writing an email to a colleague or client, it's important to establish your reason for writing the email in the first sentence or two. Then, after adding any facts or context, tell your reader clearly what you would like them to do next.

In this way the person who receives your email can quickly establish its importance and value when they see it in their email preview pane during a quick email scan through their Inbox.

Like business letters, your email sentence structures should be concise, logical and built upon one another.

10. Create and use an email signature

An email signature sits just above the footer of your email and lists your name, title, company name, phone number, email address, and other useful information.

A signature not only makes your Emails look professional, it saves time by not having to type this information into every Email.

Even if you have a default signature, you can change it to another signature when you are writing an Email. For example, you might want one signature for your business email and another for your personal Email. You can ever add company logos of photographs for a more elaborate signature.

To use one of your other signatures when writing an Email, simply click on ‘insert’ while in the compose email mode in Outlook. Scroll down on the drop down box to ‘signature’ and all of the signatures you have already set up will be shown to you. Pick the one you want and click it and it will appear anywhere in the email you want it to show up.

If you are not sure how to create signatures, ask a colleague, contact your help desk, or try Googling it.

If you would like to learn how to better manage your e-mail or inbox, why not consider my Zero Inbox training program? This e-mail management course is available in Australia and will soon be available online. You can visit, http://www.success.net.au/seminars/zero-inbox.html to learn more about how to better manage your e-mail and reduce your inbox. Alternatively, you can visit: http://www.zero-inbox.com/

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If only your Microsoft Outlook program came with a manual that taught you how to better manage your e-mail! That's why I have put together my new book called "The E-mail Manual". It is the book you should have received when you first started using e-mail. I think if everybody had a copy of this book on their desks and read it before they started using e-mail, there would be a fewer problems and issues with using and managing e-mail. Please enjoy these 5 email strategies. Be on the lookout for my other articles on how to better manage your e-mail and reduce the size of your inbox.

11. Preview your emails in your’preview’

Set up the preview pane so you can ‘preview’ your email before you open it. This allows you to quickly look through your messages to determine if the message is spam, low priority, or something you need to action now.

12. Check ALL of your email addresses directly from outlook

Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail won’t tell you this but you can check those Emails without ever opening your browser. These free email sites want you to log in so they can show you advertising. But you can set up your Outlook software to pull ALL of your Emails right to your Inbox.

Do a bit of research with each of your email addresses and you can usually find the instructions for setting up another email source in Outlook.  There is no limit to the number of email addresses Outlook will check for you.

13. Keep your address book constantly up to date

Keeping a record of your favourite email contacts is extraordinarily easy in Outlook. The easiest way to add someone to your Outlook Address book is while looking at their Email.

One of the easiest way to capture an address is to drag-and-drop the entire email directly onto the address book icon at the bottom of Outlook. Doing this will automatically create a new address entry.

14. Learn to live without printed emails

Only print Emails if you really need a paper trail. You can keep all the records you want digitally, so don’t fall into the habit of printing out Emails.

It’s a waste of your time and is not friendly to the environment.

15. Organise your address book with folders

You will be surprised when the number of email contacts you have runs into the hundreds. With that many names in your address book, it’s hard to find the ones you use all the time. So organise your email contacts into categories. You can create as many categories as you want.

Categories could include: Customers. Colleagues. Friends. Family, or Project Team Members.

Do some research into setting up and using categories. 

If you would like to learn how to better manage your e-mail or inbox, why not consider my Zero Inbox training program? This e-mail management course is available in Australia and will soon be available online. You can visit, http://www.success.net.au/seminars/zero-inbox.html to learn more about how to better manage your e-mail and reduce your inbox. Alternatively, you can visit: http://www.zero-inbox.com/

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Do you dread going away for a few days on a holiday knowing that when you come back you will have hundreds of new e-mails in your inbox? Do you spend the first morning you arrive back at work going through a huge inbox? Would you like to reduce the size of your inbox and feel more in control? If you answered yes I have some great news; I can offer you some ideas and suggestions to take back control of your inbox.

That's why I have put together my new book called "The E-mail Manual". It is the book you should have received when you first started using e-mail. I think if everybody had a copy of this book on their desks and read it before they started using e-mail, there would be a fewer problems and issues with using and managing e-mail. Please enjoy these 5 email strategies. Be on the lookout for my other articles on how to better manage your e-mail and reduce the size of your inbox.

36. Be careful about forwarding attachments

Forwarding Emails is a great way to let others know of important updates you have received. But when you hit forward, any attachments go as well.

Delete any unneeded attachments. This is especially important when forwarding an email to a group.

37. Find other ways to send large files instead of using attachments

People HATE receiving huge files by Email. It is slow, clogs up the email server and can waste time. Instead try uploading large files (say more than 3 megabytes) to a shared folder on your organisation's server, or to a free service like www.mediafire.com.

Once you have uploaded the large file, sites like www.mediafire.com will provide you a url link to the file. This link can be sent to your recipient in an Email, allowing him or her to click on the hyperlink and download the larger file from there.

Please be aware that while these free services are very reliable, use your common sense. Don't send confidential or super-sensitive files using these free services. While the chances of these files being intercepted by a third party is low, it's better to be safe than sorry.

For added security, try zipping the file and using an encrypted password.

38. Get to the top of your customers and colleague's email queue

If you want your email to get noticed, make sure it hits your recipients email box last.

For example, when you open your email in the morning, have you ever noticed how dozens of new Emails fill your screen, withthe older Emails dropping down from view?

The best way to make sure yours doesn’t fall down in the list and will get seen is to send it at the end of the day or when you know they will be probably be checking and reviewing their Email.

For example if you write an email and send it on Sunday night, (not Saturday morning), then it will be closer to the top on Monday morning when your recipient opens his or her email program.

39. Make sure your attachments work

The best way to be sure any files that you send to others will work is to open it and try it first. Make sure that you only use formats that virtually everybody uses. PDF files, Microsoft Word, Excel documents or PowerPoint presentations are common.

Beware. Some newer PDF and MS Office documents are not compatible with older Acrobat or MS Office versions, so send your attachments using the most common format or compatible version.

40. Use short subject lines

Don’t use the subject line to type your entire message (unless it is really short and simple). Keep the subject line short but significant so the person reading your email will see the subject line, know what the email is about and open the email and read your message.

If you would like to learn how to better manage your e-mail or inbox, why not consider my Zero Inbox training program? This e-mail management course is available in Australia and will soon be available online. You can visit, http://www.success.net.au/seminars/zero-inbox.html to learn more about how to better manage your e-mail and reduce your inbox. Alternatively, you can visit: http://www.zero-inbox.com/

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Isn't it interesting that most people in the workplace have never had any formal training about better managing their e-mail! E-mail is now the most important communication tool in the workplace. A few years ago most of us would pick up the telephone and call someone. Today, it's much easier to send them an e-mail. This all sounds very good, but why it is doing is that it is clogging up our inbox and taking us away from doing important work. Don't get me wrong, e-mail is a very important tool, but do you think that at times it is overused? Would you like to gain control of your inbox?

If you answered yes I have some great news; I can offer you some ideas and suggestions to take back control of your inbox.

That's why I have put together my new book called "The E-mail Manual". It is the book you should have received when you first started using e-mail. I think if everybody had a copy of this book on their desks and read it before they started using e-mail, there would be a fewer problems and issues with using and managing e-mail. Please enjoy these 5 email strategies. Be on the lookout for my other articles on how to better manage your e-mail and reduce the size of your inbox.

41. Use ’Blind Courtesy Copy’ (BCC) with care

‘Blind Courtesy’ copy (BCC) lets you keep others in the email conversation loop without alarming or notifying those who you are writing to.

It gives you a lot of control to make sure ‘certain people’ stay in the loop without making it obvious to the recipient of your Email.

Although it can have its advantages, it can also have many disadvantages. My tip is to use BCC with care and only use it if you feel it is necessary.

42. Put All your email newsletters and RSS feeds in one location

Rather than clogging up your Inbox, create some simple email rules so that any newsletters or RSS feeds you are subscribed to go straight to a relevant folder.

Friday afternoon is always a good time to scan through your newsletters; not Tuesday morning at 10am.

43. Careful opening any attachments

The most common way a virus can get into your computer is in an attachment that comes with an Email. This is especially true of attachments from people that are not from your usual email community or from people sending email from home computers.

You can see if an attachment is associated with an incoming email because you will see a symbol of a paperclip along the side of that Email.

When in doubt, delete it! Even if you have anti-virus software installed, delete any email with an attachment unless it is from a trusted source or it's an attachment that you were already expecting.

44. Install a good email virus protection software

It is almost impossible to have anything to do with the internet and not be aware of these things called viruses, malware and spyware.

The severity of these internet ‘diseases’ can range from being big nuisances to being totally destructive.

Some viruses can slow down your computer; some transmit information about you or your computer to someone far away so they can use your personal information.

To keep net nasties from sneaking in via Email, buy one of the best email antivirus and anti-spyware software packages for your home PC.

Right now Norton and McAfee are the top rated software packages that can do the job for you. They are worth the investment as they protect your important data and your identity.

Every home computer should have a firewall, an anti-virus program, and an anti-spyware/ malware program.

45. Keep your anti-virus data constantly up to date

If you go to the trouble of buying and installing a good anti-virus and anti-spyware program for your home PC, make sure it checks for updates every day.

New viruses spring into existence overnight and it’s the job of companies like Norton and McAfee to stay on top of what is out there. By setting the software to ‘auto-update’ your computer frequently and without restrictions, you will know that the next big virus scare won’t affect you.

 
If you would like to learn how to better manage your e-mail or inbox, why not consider my Zero Inbox training program? This e-mail management course is available in Australia and will soon be available online. You can visit, http://www.success.net.au/seminars/zero-inbox.html to learn more about how to better manage your e-mail and reduce your inbox. Alternatively, you can visit: http://www.zero-inbox.com/

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Do you remember what it was like to be at work without having e-mail spurting into your inbox every few minutes? If you are a Generation Y employee, you probably grew up with e-mail. On the other hand, if you are a Baby Boomer and e-mail is something that you have only started using the past decade or so, learning how to manage and interact with e-mail could be a struggle. If you haven't received any formal training in learning how to better manage e-mail, you are probably doing your best at what comes naturally to you. What comes best isn't always what is best. If you answered yes I have some great news; I can offer you some ideas and suggestions to take back control of your inbox.

That's why I have put together my new book called "The E-mail Manual". It is the book you should have received when you first started using e-mail. I think if everybody had a copy of this book on their desks and read it before they started using e-mail, there would be a fewer problems and issues with using and managing e-mail. Please enjoy these 5 email strategies. Be on the lookout for my other articles on how to better manage your e-mail and reduce the size of your inbox.

46. Use outlooks spam protection tools

Within Outlook, the primary defence against spam is the blocked senders list. Using this tool you can add any email address to the blocked senders list and those Emails will be sent directly to your Spam Folder as soon as they arrive in future.

By the way, do check your Spam folder every few days as occasionally ‘good Email’ gets sent to the Spam or Junk folder. Outlook allows you to create a new rule to make any ‘good Email’ sent to your Junk Folder safe. Next time an email from this person will go to your Inbox, not your Junk Folder.

47. Filter All unwanted emails as spam

email should be treated the same way you treat your regular mail. You don’t welcome junk mail that comes in to your physical mailbox at home. You just throw it all away. So use the same methods to control unwanted email or spam. Send it to the Junk Folder to be discarded on your next shutdown.

48. Don’t give out your email address to just anyone

Lots of web sites have special offers or ways to ‘harvest’ your email address. You should be aware that when you give your email address up too easily it can be sold or used to send you things that you would never ask for, including spam and viruses. So be careful who you let use your email address. See the next tip to solve this.

49. Never give out credit card information or personal data over email

 This really should be a no-brainer. Never send your credit card details in an email to ANYONE!

If you are buying a product or service that needs a credit card, use PayPal, or a proper online shopping cart.

50. Using an alternate email address to reduce spam

NEVER use your business email or your primary personal email account when signing up for stuff.

Create a third ‘junk email account’ and use that instead.

You can sign up for a free email address with Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail. Because you can read email coming to these accounts online, they never need to go directly to your Outlook program. They go to the server for the service that provides the free address. In that way you can trap the ‘junk’ from spreading to your computer.

For anyone who is using email a lot, having more than one  email accounts is a good move. It is possible to set up your copy of Outlook to collect email from those services to your desktop as well. But that defeats some of the purpose of having the alternative email account.

If you would like to learn how to better manage your e-mail or inbox, why not consider my Zero Inbox training program? This e-mail management course is available in Australia and will soon be available online. You can visit, http://www.success.net.au/seminars/zero-inbox.html to learn more about how to better manage your e-mail and reduce your inbox. Alternatively, you can visit: http://www.zero-inbox.com/

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Did you know that one of the worst things you can do from time management and productivity perspective is to coming to work in the morning and start checking and answering e-mails before planning your day! When you come into work and the first thing you do is log on and start checking e-mails, you put yourself in a reactionary mode to the rest of the day. Would you like to better manage your e-mail and not be so reactionar? If you answered yes I have some great news; I can offer you some ideas and suggestions to take back control of your inbox.

That's why I have put together my new book called "The E-mail Manual". It is the book you should have received when you first started using e-mail. I think if everybody had a copy of this book on their desks and read it before they started using e-mail, there would be a fewer problems and issues with using and managing e-mail. Please enjoy these 5 email strategies. Be on the lookout for my other articles on how to better manage your e-mail and reduce the size of your inbox.

51. Careful about having sensitive information in an email

Never write anything in an email that you are not prepared for other eyes to see. Politically incorrect, rude and just plain stupid email messages have an uncanny way of finding their way into many other email inboxes. In fact, email can travel halfway around the world before you can blink an eyelid.

Be very careful when you include confidential or sensitive information in an Email. Ask yourself if there is a better way of communicating this information before you decide to send it.

52. Send an email followed by a formal document

When you make arrangements for an important document to go to a business associate, their initial reaction to that document is as important as the content of the document itself.

Sending an email first can lay the groundwork for the arrival of a formal, printed document.

53. Be careful when opening unknown web links

When someone wants you to go see a website or a web link, they will usually copy the internet location right into the Email. The link will be blue so you can click right on that part of the email and your browser will go directly to that website.

Be wary of this (unless you know the sender) as the link could take you to a site that automatically downloads viruses.

54. Change your passwords regularly

Spammers and identity thieves are experts at breaking passwords. Keep your email secure and away from ‘hackers’ by changing your password at least once every few months.

Also, make sure you use smart passwords by creating passwords with letters and numbers. Also, use a password that is not an actual word. Don't use the name of your pet or your child as a password. They are the first passwords hackers will try.

55. Never try to win an argument with email

One huge weakness of using email or any type of electronic communication is that without seeing someone's facial expressions and hearing their voice tone, any message can be easily misinterpreted or misunderstood.

While trying to communicate your tone when composing an email is challenging at the best of times, it can be absolutely disastrous when you are having a heated conversation or debate using only Email.

When you escalate what starts out as a ‘heated discussion’ your problems start compounding.

How do you correct this?

Whenever you feel that any email conversation is approaching the level of an argument or disagreement, it might be time to pick up the phone or to go see the person face-to-face.

If you would like to learn how to better manage your e-mail or inbox, why not consider my Zero Inbox training program? This e-mail management course is available in Australia and will soon be available online. You can visit, http://www.success.net.au/seminars/zero-inbox.html to learn more about how to better manage your e-mail and reduce your inbox. Alternatively, you can visit: http://www.zero-inbox.com/

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What would you do if you were able to find an extra 30 minutes to one hour a day of extra time and productivity, simply by managing your e-mail and your inbox better? What would you do with your time? I'm sure like most of us, there are more important projects and tasks that we have to undertake. While e-mail is an important tool, many professional people had never learnt the strategies in managing their inbox.  That's why I have put together my new book called "The E-mail Manual". It is the book you should have received when you first started using e-mail. I think if everybody had a copy of this book on their desks and read it before they started using e-mail, there would be a fewer problems and issues with using and managing e-mail. Please enjoy these 5 email strategies. Be on the lookout for my other articles on how to better manage your e-mail and reduce the size of your inbox.

61. Use the drafting option

Not many people are aware that you can work on an email in Outlook for as long as you like and if you don’t finish it, it will be saved for you  to work on later. There is an Outlook Folder called ‘Drafts’. This folder will hold any Emails you want to save to be sent later. By not filling in the addressee (‘To ;’), those Emails are safe in the Drafts folder for you to decide how to use them at a later time.

62. Cultural references don’t translate well in email

If the recipient of your email is not from your own country or culture, be mindful of colloquialisms, humour or references that only a local person would understand. After all, you want to get your point across, not alienate a potential business contact.

If you are communicating with colleagues or customers overseas, ‘swat up’ on their culture and learn what is and isn't acceptable to write.

63. Be concise in your business email

An email is no place to build a case to change someone’s mind. If you need to accomplish substantive business with the person you are Emailing, make an appointment and speak to them face-to-face or over the phone.

Don’t preface your statements with a lot of lead up. In fact, when at all possible, state your business in the first few sentences of your Email.

If it is going to be a long email to explain something, say so with an opening line like ‘I need to spell out how this works.’

Then use a bulleted list in the email to make it easy to read.

When writing Emails, the rule is: ‘less is more’.

Be brief and to the point.

64. Make sure you reply to the correct person

Making sure you have the right email address in the ‘To’ column when sending an outgoing email is a simple strategy for avoiding trouble when sending out replies or forwarding email with sensitive or important content.

As incredible as it sounds, sending an email to the wrong addressee is one of the most common and embarrassing mistakes people make using Email.

When you get an email that may have several or many email addresses, it would be easy to hit ‘reply’ and just answer the primary contact. Be sure that is what you want to do. If you actually intended the email to go to one of the other contacts, you can reach them by clicking on their name in the hyperlinked text of the email or choosing them from your address book.

Double checking your email addressee (especially when you have contacts with the same first or last name in your address book) avoids this mistake.

65. Make your subject line clear and specific

We all receive dozens of Emails during a typical work day and none of us have the time to figure out the content of a message by trying to decipher a cryptic subject line.

People should able to evaluate what your email is about very quickly, so state the purpose of your message succinctly in the subject line.

A mistake that is very easy to fall into is to never change the subject line on a string of Emails that travels from associate to associate when forwarding or CC-ing Emails.

If nobody updates the subject line, you or the person you are Emailing could easily find many Emails in his or her Inbox with the same subject line. Break that habit and change the subject line with each email to be clear and specific.

WRONG: RE: …

RIGHT: I need your feedback by this Friday afternoon.

WRONG: The meeting.

RIGHT: I am confirming the date for the next meeting is July 24th.

WRONG: Help please.

RIGHT: John, I need your help with the calculations on the Jones Proposal.

WRONG: Wanna catch up?

RIGHT: Do you have time for a coffee Friday am, (re coaching follow up)?

WRONG: No, we shouldn't be doing that!

RIGHT: Janice, here's what's bothering me about the Acme refund.

If you would like to learn how to better manage your e-mail or inbox, why not consider my Zero Inbox training program? This e-mail management course is available in Australia and will soon be available online. You can visit, http://www.success.net.au/seminars/zero-inbox.html to learn more about how to better manage your e-mail and reduce your inbox. Alternatively, you can visit: http://www.zero-inbox.com/

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