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Based on his own analytics, each email Robert Scoble sends he receives 1.5 to 2 back.
This ratio blows out when you have people who work in large companies needing to justify their existence and convey an appearance of them actually doing work. These people tend to translate sending email as doing actual work when it really is detracting time and creativity from others.
How can working this way scale? It cant.
To combat this I employ the following email processing techniques
- I do not respond to emails unless there is a question that is directed to me.
- If an answer to a question that requires me to respond is directed to a single person, I will pick up the phone and call that person instead of emailing them. In Getting Things Done parlance, this allows me to “close the loop” as soon as possible.
- If I have to respond to a reply-to-all email I only include the people who I know the response impacts. I will not include people I do not know within a reply-to-all email.
What has this resulted in? Well, for starters I’m able to achieve much, much more real work as I dont have a constant email barrage to deal with. Im also able to achieve inbox zero quicker and with alot less effort.
Employing an email filter which archives all email that I’m not To’d on has also helped gain real results. My blog post how i cut down 90% of my email with less than 20 seconds worth of effort explains this filter.
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