Managing e-mails

A study of Scottish workers reviewed by the BBC this past week found that “More than a third of workers say they feel “stressed out” by the number of e-mails they receive in the office and the pressure to respond promptly. Scottish research found some workers are viewing their inbox up to 40 times each hour, leaving them tired and frustrated – as well as unproductive.” The study suggests checking e-mail a maximum of two or three times per day, and waiting a day or two before replying where possible and appropriate.

The BBC Magazine carries some helpful and amusing suggestions for managing e-mails. The linked article features the auto-reply, conveying some version of “Out of Office”. It suggests using the tool when you’re actually at work but need to attend to your own business rather than responding to messages coming in that may or may not be important.

Will Schwalbe, with David Shipley co-author of “Send: The How, Why, When – and When Not – of Email”, suggests judicial use of out-of-office messages for reasons other than vacations.

“I don’t consider it dishonest. It’s survival. I get about 200 e-mails a day, that’s more than 60,000 every year. And people have got so demanding, if you don’t answer in half an hour, they’re e-mailing again to say ‘why haven’t you replied?’ and ‘didn’t you get my e-mail?’. An out of office message stops them from freaking out – and it keeps their paranoia down to a dull roar,” says Mr Schwalbe.”

When you’re really on vacation, one suggestion: Set the out of office reply to “I’m away on vacation until xxx date. The e-mail you sent will be auto-deleted. If important, please re-send when I get back.”

For many of us, sending an e-mail is the equivalent of passing the hot potato – “it’s your turn now”. If I received an auto message like that, I would tend to take care of the issue myself or look for someone else to help me… or else, make a note to call or resend when appropriate. If everyone did that, the hundreds of emails that build up over a week’s vacation would be greatly reduced. That would be a good thing for both sender and recipient, by taking care of issues and not leaving them piling up in an In-box when perhaps other solutions have been found by the time the initial recipient returns.

Another suggestion: Add humor. BBC readers suggest: “[name] is currently out of the office. If your email is urgent, please feel free to panic.”

Or even, “You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, you wouldn’t have received anything at all.”

That message probably wouldn’t go over too well from government workers or many businesses, in the United States. I’m guessing it is read with guffaws in Britain.