Email Management Strategies

Checking email

Processing email

Writing email

Avoiding email

Ignoring email

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The basic idea of email has remained essentially unchanged since the first networked message was sent in 1971. And while email is great for one-on-one, formal correspondence, there are far better tools for collaboration.

Ryan Holmes

Email has become the standard communication channel for academic collaboration, but most academics use it poorly. There’s a lot of information out there for academics who want to get better at writing, but almost nothing for those of us who want to get better at email. And yet, most of us spend far more time dealing with email than writing.

An email is a request for your time and attention, and an inbox is a to-do list put together by other people with no insight into your priorities. Most email communication consists of moving low-value information around, but moving information around is not work. Many academics conflate ’email’ with ‘work’, but email is only one of many inputs into your work.

Aim and objectives

Build a more reasonable relationship with your email, where your daily tasks aren’t determined by the random order of messages in your inbox.

The objectives of this course are to:

  1. Establish a fixed routine for checking email.
  2. Work effectively with the information in email.
  3. Write better email.
  4. Consider other options instead of email.
  5. Ignore emails that are ambiguous or unclear.

Course overview

Checking email Processing email Writing email Avoiding email Ignoring email Summary