Bob Walsh includes the following line at the bottom of his email signature:
(I usually check email every few hours during the day.)
What a great idea! People who correspond with Bob now know that:
- he does not allow incoming email to disturb what he’s doing (he practices GTD), but
- he’ll definitely read your message within a few hours.
I’m going to adopt this idea with a slight tweak, and add the following to my email signature:
I usually check email every couple of hours during the day, and I reply to most messages within 24 hours.
This won’t stop the odd idiot from calling up to ask if I’ve seen the email he just sent me, but I am confident that it will help to train the rest of my environment to interact with me more efficiently.
Email programs have not changed much in the past decade, but the amount of email we get has grown by a tremendous amount, significantly impacting our email productivity. The average information worker gets far more mail than s/he can cope with, and an increasing number of people suffer from "email overload". In this blog, Itzy Sabo analyzes the causes of email overload, discusses strategies to cope with the constant bombardment, and provides practical tips for getting the most out of our email programs. 
3 responses so far ↓
AYS Virtual Assistant Weblog » Taming technology // September 10, 2006 at 8:44 pm |
[...] Mr. Reid’s article links to a blog entry in the Email Overloaded blog by Itzy Sabo about adding something to the signature in your e-mail messages to appropriately set expectations. This is a great idea, and ties in nicely with all those who are embracing the GTD methodology. [...]
Sid // December 2, 2006 at 11:46 pm |
This is a wonderful tip. But it backfired for me. My boss (with whom I share a very comfortable relationship and who is VERY demanding) sent me a reply which read, “what the heck do you carry your BlackBerry for?”.
Nevertheless, I know it’s a great tip and reduces the number of phone-calls or follow-up email very effectively. I just don’t know how to reduce my workload. I get nearly 400+ emails a week that need my attention/reply/action.
Damn!
Business Hacks » What Should Your Email Signature Look Like? on BNET // August 17, 2007 at 12:00 am |
[...] I’d suggest a more minimalist signature to your work email, too, but suggest that your title and email address should go in there somewhere as well. And I’m warming up to the suggestion from Email Overloaded to help set reply expectations by including the line, “I reply to most messages within 24 hours.“ [...]