E-mail Traffic Explodes to 135 Million in 2005
This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Productivity
As this article from today's NY Times points out, e-mail traffic has increased from 5.1 million 
messages in 2000 to 135.6 million messages in 2005. That is obviously a huge trend upwards with no real sign that it will cool anytime soon. Sure, e-mail is fast and efficient, but it can also be a huge drain on a person's time. With stories of inboxes flowing with 100's of e-mails, most of us probably face quite a deluge of e-mail in our own right.
From the article, a few of the reasons for the upswing in e-mail deluged inboxes:
1. The rampant office practice of "cc-ing" colleagues and bosses (carbon copying).
2. The popularity of wireless connections and hand-held devices like Treos/BlackBerries
3. We are all addicted to it on some level
4. Spam
Ok, so before you keel over saying "I know all about this, how about some help!" Here are some suggestions for better dealing with the huge amount of e-mail most of us probably receive:
1. Take care of your most easily answered e-mails first. Yeah, it sounds simple, but this one has worked well for me.
2. Try to stick to roughly one issue per message, I've found that when I abide by this rule, it helps bring clarity to the other person. Besides, the reader typically will only recall the first few items, and the last few items that you mention anyway.
3. If you truly aren't going to ever respond to a particular message, then copy down any important details, and delete it. Get it out of your inbox!
Overcomeemailoverload.com lists a few suggestions, including saving and reusing responses to questions that you get frequently. This idea of using a template for e-mail, echoes some of what you can find on 43folders.com. They have an great list of Five fast email productivity tips that should be a great start to getting through our e-mail more efficiently.
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