According to the research conducted by workplace communications consultancy, Expert Messaging, the average in-box will have 450 emails and heavy users up to 3,000 messages waiting to be dealt with. The situation is further complicated by the fact the 70% of these messages will be SPAM or un-wanted email, posing the eternal question for many - delete all or not to delete all?
Workplace communications expert Bob Hallewell has developed a personal email strategy to help people deal with the ‘Spamalanche’ on their return to work. The four ‘D’ personal email strategy - Deal with it now, delegate it, delete it or defer it until later. But the key is how you apply this to your inbox:
Three guiding principles which ensure you adopt a ‘One Touch’ approach to deal with email:
1. Sort your inbox by sender – indentify your most important contacts and apply the four ‘D’ strategy
2. Sort by subject – this will quickly help you identify SPAM
3. Sort by date – work through from the newest to the oldest. Often actions/discussions are resolved by later emails, meaning you can delete earlier ones
“Many people will be tempted to adopt the ‘delete all’ strategy when they return to the office, but it’s a hi-risk approach. There is no doubt it brings a cathartic pleasure, but then remember you are back to work and you may be deleting some important or critical information,” said, Bob Hallewell, Expert Messaging.
The research was conducted over an 18 month period, monitored 3,650 people from 150 UK based organisations, the key findings revealed how the post Christmas ‘Spamalanche’ will look for UK employees:
• Light email users will see 185 messages in their inbox
• Average email users will see 450 messages in their inbox
• Heavy email users will see 3,000 messages in their inbox
Hallewell added: “This is an age old battle we all face with email communications. It sits at the centre of the modern workplace and we spend several hours per day managing it.
Paradoxically, none or very few of us have ever been given any formal training on how to use email effectively.
This is highlighted at times such as Christmas when we return to a full inbox, we spend too long pondering and not being decisive about how to deal with the messages we have.”