I’ve been doing a lot of research and writing lately about the topic of being more efficient with email. In discussing this topic with people, I’ve discovered that the majority of people who feel that they are not efficient with email have the same few concerns.

Those concerns are:

• Lack of understanding about their email program. Most of these people feel that they don’t fully understand the different things that they can do to sort, organize and utilize their email accounts most efficiently.
• Too-frequent use of email. One of the most common complaints from people is that they check email all of the time which reduces productivity in other areas of their work.
• Taking too long to respond. This means two things. First, people feel like they leave emails in their inboxes too long before answering them which clutters the inbox and stresses them out. And second, they feel like writing up their responses takes too much of their time.

What I have come to believe after talking with these people is that the solution is a fairly simple one:

Set aside time each day to deal with email.

During this time, you can commit to answering everything that comes through your inbox in a focused and efficient manner. You can also commit a certain amount of time each day to learning a new tool or trick for your email. (A good one is to learn about email templates which will reduce your response time!) And then you can forget about email the rest of the day.

Tags: efficiency, ehow, email, how to, kathryn vercillo, productivity, simplify, tips

There are a lot of technological devices out there which have the potential to make us more effective in our productivity (such as unified communications tools). Unfortunately, a lot of these devices can be a double-edged sword; they offer a lot of ways to decrease our productivity too.

A really simple example is the use of instant messaging programs. They can increase productivity by making communication with team members more immediate and more efficient. However, if you have IM programs running all day then you may get distracted from your focus and actually lose productivity.

This was highlighted by a couple of the Twitter responses that I got yesterday when I requested for people to send me their top productivity tips. A couple immediate responses were:

• @BerksBess “turn off Twitter (and the Internet as a whole)”.
• @cdolwagen ”set aside specific time slots for email, web browsing and Twitter. Use a timer so you don’t overrun ”

In other words, you really need to maintain some level of self control when you are making use of technology and Web 2.0 tools. The level of productivity that is possible with them is truly within the power of the person using them.

Smart people are going to maximize their use of these tools without overusing them. The other tips that I received via Twitter from those types of smart people were:

• @kashicat ”For creative people with ADD, doing work in small chunks (i.e. light at end of several tunnels) can help get it done.
• @Ivenetian When you feel yourself drifting…say to yourself “back to work”!

So, back to work it is!

Tags: business, efficiency, kathryn vercillo, productivity, self-control, Technology, twitter, work