Imagine the scenario: it’s the 1960s and you’re a busy office worker. You’ve just finished up for your two-week summer holiday at Great Yarmouth, and you’re looking forward to riding the snails at the Pleasure Beach. When you return to work, you find over 200 memos in your intray.
It wouldn’t happen…
Jump forward to today…you return from your ten-day holiday on some Greek island to 200+ emails (or you might have even spent Sunday night going through them).
How has this become acceptable?! How has email gone from a pretty geniune form of electronic correspondence to a catch-all pile of every type of information possible? And is it acceptable any more? I call on you all to repent for the seven deadly sins of email and live a virtuous, marvellous new world of email correspondance and make the best use of the other brilliant tools at our disposal for the other tasks that email has become.
Here are, what I have deemed, the seven deadly sins of email (and what you can do about them):
1. When email is used to set up meetings
How is everyone fixed on the 19th? Shall we meet at 2pm in the Pioneer room? Agenda attached. Great.
A date, a time, a place, an agenda…on an email…when I have a calendar…hmmm… Why? I think virtually every operating system now provides some sort of calendar software that integrates with the same address book you use for emails. Microsoft has Outlook, Apple has iCal, Google has Gmail and Calendar built in together (even with Maps) – and they’re all easy, they all allow far more information than an email will capture, they even remind you to go to the meeting! Why wouldn’t you use calendars to set up meetings? You can attach agendas and update them regularly, you can provide all the conference call details if that’s what you are doing, you can provide links, attachments and anything else. It makes no sense to set up a meeting via email. Ever.
ACTION: Stop it. Send a meeting invite to my calendar.
2. When email is used to delegate tasks
Would you mind getting in touch with Wallace to order more cheese? Thanks.
There are soooooo many good, free online task management tools. Lets be honest, most emails require us to do something. Wouldn’t it be better to have that task put into an appropriate task management tool straight away with the deadline, responsibility, notes, attachements, updates, notes, everything accessible by everyone who needs to know? For example, Asana offers a fantastic, free service:
If people do insist on sending you tasks via email, try downloading something like Mailbox onto your iPhone or iPad – it’s a great action-based email system that allows you to come back to things later on, swipe them to complete and all manner of marvellousness.
ACTION: Stop it. Click the link and get your team/clients on Asana so everyone can see real-time what is going on and where you’re up to.
3. When email is used to have a chat
You alright?
Social interaction with friends, colleagues, stakeholders, clients is great. It’s a really important part of the experience of life. If you really care though, find the right channel to ask. Email is not it. Pick up the sodding phone and ask. Or use some social media to ask. Don’t clog up my inbox with this.
ACTION: Stop it. Pick up the phone, send me tweet, FaceTime me.
4. When email is used to avoid taking responsibility
cc: Broadsword, Danny Boy, Anthony, Cleopatra, Darth Vader, Sauron, Kitchen Sink
I know somebody needs to make a decision about this thing I’m working on, but I’ve no idea who – so I’ll cc everyone who might want a say and wait until someone tells me what to do next. Hurrah!
I’ll tell you what’s even worse – ‘Reply to All’ when ‘ALL’ really don’t need to know. Urgh.
ACTION: Stop it. Find out who is the decision maker and ask them.
5. When email is used to gather ideas
Can you send me your ideas by close of play tomorrow?
This approach ignores the group and instead creates a whole bunch of individual responses, some of which may overlap, and none of which can build and develop on each others ideas. Is that really what you wanted when you asked your team for a bunch of ideas tomorrow? And even when you have got those ideas, you’ve then got to format them somehow so you can see the ideas together in the same place. Email is a terrible way to collate ideas. Again, there are free tools, such as Trello that creates online boards that team members or clients can use to build and develop ideas together. If you want to go even further, Google provides great, free services to allow real-time collaboration on ideas, documents, spreadsheets, presentations – a far better way of collecting ideas and thoughts instead of using emails. See their ‘work has gone Google’ promo video:
ACTION: Stop it. Use a real-time, collaborative online tool to work on ideas together.
6. When email is used to flag everything is urgent
RED FLAG: IMPORTANT/HIGH PRIORITY: Who’s taken the milk out of the fridge?
You’ve heard of the boy who cried wolf, right? What about the boy who labelled every email as high priority?! They got ignored and sent to junk. The milk being missing from the fridge is not high priority email – unless you’re working in a cafe…and even then… There is a silly abuse of the high priority flag on emails. Sure, when you’re the boss and you want to make something a high priority, it’s ok – but otherwise, it is quite often used by people who don’t determine your priorities to make you aware what their priorities are. I am capable of (and get paid to) prioritise for myself, thank you very much. A little red exclamation mark won’t help me do it.
ACTION: Stop it. Just stop it.
7. When email is used as fire and forget
Out of office: I’m away right now, but I’ll respond to your email as soon as I can
Go back to the 1960s example. There wouldn’t be 200 memos because we’d know you were off and we’d save the information for when you get back, or deal with it ourselves. Now it seems that a fire and forget approach of emails (i.e. I do my bit by emailing it now – you can deal with it on your return) is the preferred method. Shame that. Wouldn’t it be nice to return from holiday knowing that everything has been taken care of? To return feeling peaceful, rested and ready for what happens next? We can help people to feel that.
ACTION: Stop it. Have a care, damn you, and let people return from their holiday in peace.
If you’re still using email as anything other that electronic mail (i.e. what you would have previously used for physical correspondence), try finding a better alternative. OK, I hear those of us who are still using Windows XP, Office 2003 and Internet Explorer 7 at work…I hear you loud and clear…but for everyone else?!?
There is further reading on 99u about giving up email and reclaiming time!
What riles you about email? What other tools are there out there to beat email apathy?
Sam Grayston 
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