Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to avoid a few email
Speaker 1: mistakes that can cost you a lot of time in
Speaker 1: the long run. Email is a relatively recent technology. Forty
Speaker 1: years ago, it was confined mostly to government and academic settings.
Speaker 1: Now it's ubiquitous, and it shapes the way we spend
Speaker 1: our time. One study from a few years ago found
Speaker 1: that office workers spent twenty percent of their days on email,
Speaker 1: which is about eleven hours a week. While that might
Speaker 1: not sound too bad, the problem is that people tend
Speaker 1: to check email frequently, meaning that all other time feels
Speaker 1: chopped up. With so much time devoted to email, you'd
Speaker 1: think people would be better at it, but we still
Speaker 1: make all kinds of mistakes. Today's episode is about a
Speaker 1: few rules that can help you be a better email citizen. First,
Speaker 1: be careful who you copy before you reply all or
Speaker 1: add a new person to a thread. Look at all
Speaker 1: the names on the email. Scroll all the way down
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the chain to be sure that
Speaker 1: anything being forwarded is cool. To forward to everyone listed,
Speaker 1: Assume nothing that person your potential new clients see seed
Speaker 1: might not be the client's assistant. It might be a
Speaker 1: competing vendor who's now got all your information because you
Speaker 1: hit reply all Oops. Or maybe someone made an edgy
Speaker 1: joke and then the email thread got turned into something
Speaker 1: else and then got forwarded to other folks who will
Speaker 1: not be amused by the humor, or at least won't
Speaker 1: understand the context. When in doubt, delete or start a
Speaker 1: new email chain. Second, don't use sarcasm without alerting people.
Speaker 1: Sarcasm and humor in general can be fun ways to
Speaker 1: bond in person, they're also almost impossible to convey in
Speaker 1: the written word. One study found that whether people were
Speaker 1: emailing friends or strangers, the people receiving the emails were
Speaker 1: wildly inaccurate in determining what was sarcastic and what was serious.
Speaker 1: This can go wrong in all sorts of ways. The
Speaker 1: person receiving your message might think you're being deliberately mean
Speaker 1: rather than making a joke, So don't be subtle. Either
Speaker 1: put in the word sarcasm or put a smiley face
Speaker 1: next to anything that should be interpreted lightly. If emojis
Speaker 1: don't feel right, then don't make your joke in the
Speaker 1: first place, save it for the in person meeting, when
Speaker 1: your comedy act is far more likely to shine. Third,
Speaker 1: and a related point, be more positive than you think
Speaker 1: is necessary. Email in general reads negatively. It's unclear why
Speaker 1: this is. Possibly when we talk in person, we send
Speaker 1: reassuring nonverbal cues that the relationship matters and we're not
Speaker 1: trying to be aggressive. But these cues are completely absent
Speaker 1: in the written form. That means that if you write
Speaker 1: the way you normally talk, what you write will be
Speaker 1: interpreted more harshly than if you're in person. So over
Speaker 1: the years, I've learned to write the email i'd naturally send,
Speaker 1: then go back and make it look like it came
Speaker 1: from a happier, bubblier version of Laura. Even a short
Speaker 1: greeting such as I hope you had a great weekend
Speaker 1: tour I was so glad to hear from you can
Speaker 1: go a long way toward making the emails seem more
Speaker 1: positive if you don't intend to flame someone. Finally, there's
Speaker 1: the question of when you're sending the email. The original
Speaker 1: genius of email was that it was a synchronous communication.
Speaker 1: I write an email at a time that works for me,
Speaker 1: You read and respond at a time that works for you. Alas,
Speaker 1: we've now devolved into a situation where email is treated
Speaker 1: with the urgency of a phone call, but people email
Speaker 1: with a prolificacy they never manage on a telephone In
Speaker 1: any case, this has some important ramifications. If you're in management,
Speaker 1: you should understand that anyone who reports to you will
Speaker 1: feel like she should respond to your emails as soon
Speaker 1: as possible. That's human nature. But maybe your email wasn't urgent.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're emailing at ten pm because you like to
Speaker 1: catch up on work after your kids go to bed.
Speaker 1: You might want to save the email as a draft
Speaker 1: and send it out at eight am. You can also
Speaker 1: tell your employees that you generally don't expect them to
Speaker 1: respond at odd hours. You'll call if you need them.
Speaker 1: This respect for boundaries means you'll have employees who are
Speaker 1: happier and more recharged. So how will you be more
Speaker 1: careful with your emails? It's worth the time to think
Speaker 1: it through. When we talk, the words are generally gone,
Speaker 1: but an email can last forever. Best to get it
Speaker 1: right in the meantime. This is Laura, Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod
Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart media dot com that Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I
Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.