I have several hunded emails a day, I subscribe to more than a dozen ADD yahoo groups and several coaching ones. For these groups in particular I usually just skim the subject headers, I certainly don’t read them all. One sure way to get me to ignore an email it is when the sender uses a generic non specific title, i.e. a one word description, or the worst offender “a question” About what? This particular subject line should be banned.
Stever Robbins has some great tips for dealing with the email monster both for sending and dealing with the deluge.
It’s a long very useful article, here’s a few excerpts
The problem is that readers now bear the burden
Before e-mail, senders shouldered the burden of mail. Writing, stamping, and mailing a letter was a lot of work. Plus, each new addressee meant more postage, so we thought hard about whom to send things to. (Is it worth spending thirty-two cents for Loren to read this letter? NahÉ.)
* Charge people for sending you messages.
One CEO I’ve worked with charges staff members five dollars from their budget for each e-mail she receives. Amazingly, her overload has gone down, the relevance of e-mails has gone up, and the senders are happy, too, because the added thought often results in them solving more problems on their own.
* Use a paper “response list” to triage messages before you do any follow-up.
The solution to e-mail overload is pencil and paper? Who knew? Grab a legal pad and label it “Response list.” Run through your incoming e-mails. For each, note on the paper what you have to do or whom you have to call. Resist the temptation to respond immediately. If there’s important reference information in the e-mail, drag it to your Reference folder. Otherwise, delete it. Zip down your entire list of e-mails to generate your response list. Then, zip down your response list and actually do the follow-up.