Netiquette Basic Types of Email and How to Respond to Them - Via The Netiquette IQ Blog of The Day

One of the individual and business challenges of email is to effectively manage an ever increasing volume of them. The article below provides an excellent template to develop a process of doing this. Also my book and mentioned below addresses this extensively.
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The Seven Types Of Emails And How To Deal With Them

lifehacker.com.au George Kao 28 November 2014 2:30 PM

We all deal with inbox overload every day, whether it’s messages from work or suspicious salutations about a surprising inheritance. But you can categorise all the emails you receive into seven basic categories to more easily process them without taking all day.

There are of course a lot of tacticsyou can use to deal with emails, but let’s start by taking a look at what these seven categories are and how to utilise them.

The Seven Categories of Email

1.    No need to reply, and not important to read. Generously apply the archive or delete function! And if it’s a newsletter that you almost never read, do yourself a favour and unsubscribe. If some information is really that important, trust that it will come to you another way, e.g. through your personal network.

2.    File away. Examples include tax receipts, examples of great emails, and info needed when you next work on a project. It can be helpful to create folders for these, but don’t get crazy with categorisation; if you find yourself creating many folders, you need to simplify your work or life. And when you actually need to find an email, practice using the search function.

3.    Optional response. No need to respond, but it would be more courteous if you did.

4.    Spare time reading. It would be nice to read, but not required. Practise putting as many emails as possible into this category (and the previous one!) This is key to improving your email productivity.

5.    Required to respond today — Go ahead and respond either in the moment, if important and urgent, or at the end of your workday when you are clearing out your inbox.

6.    Required to respond (e.g. emails from a boss, partner, or client) but not today. Distance creates perspective. If an email doesn’t require a response today, put it in a folder named the day you would like to respond (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) then on that day, go into that folder. For example you might want to follow a “morning checklist” that includes “Open today’s email folder”. There are a few tools you can use to automate this: RightInbox for Gmail (I use this) and FollowUpThen.com or FollowUp.cc.

7.    Undecided. Rather than indulge in analysis of paralysis, just put it into one of the above categories. It’s probably #1 or #2.

Consider creating email folders for #2-5. #2 could be multiple folders depending on projects. #3 and #4 can just be one folder each.

#5 could be multiple folders too — a different folder for each weekday, and another set of folders for each month, or you can use the automated tools suggested above.

Make Your Email Processing More Efficient

·         Have a specific time to process your email. I spend 30 minutes at the end of each workday clearing my email inbox to zero. This is more efficient than trying to clear your inbox to zero throughout the day. Why? Because of the “batching” principle. The less often you switch activities, the more flow and efficiency you tend to experience.

·         What if you get urgent emails? This is why I do check my email throughout the day (about once an hour) to see if there’s anything urgent and important. If it requires a response immediately, I do that. If not, I save the response for end of day. Remember this: distance creates perspective. The longer you can wait to respond to an email, the more perspective you have about the issue. Sometimes by the end of day, the issue resolves itself. When people figure things out for themselves, they become more empowered in the process.

·         Anytime you’re not checking email, close your email software. Or at least make it so you don’t see the number of new emails climbing up. This way, you’re not draining your subconscious energy, continuing to wonder if you’re getting messages. And definitely turn off any email notifications — audio and visual — for new messages. You don’t work in a nuclear power plant. (And even if you did, the truly urgent stuff wouldn’t come via email.)

·         When you process your inbox that one time a day (which I recommend to do at the end of workday, so your motivation to finish your day will naturally speed up your email processing) — set an intention to process your email quickly, like a game. (You can even try the “email game” tool.) Say to yourself “Next, Next, Next,” as you delete or archive most emails, rather than spend energy with each and every email.

·         Write shorter emails. What is the one main thing you want to communicate? Say it concisely. The shorter your emails, the shorter their email response tends to be. It saves everyone time.

·         However: be positive & friendly. Emails can build, or erode, relationships quickly. I always try to come across as encouraging and kind, and start or end my emails with something appreciative about the recipient or the situation. For example, “Thanks for your thoughtful message!” or “Hope the rest of your week goes well!” Think of the primary purpose of most emails to be relational (improving trust in that relationship)and secondarily transactional (asking/answering questions, proposing ideas, etc.)

·         When doing your once-a-day inbox clearing, process your email from top down. If you skip around, it’s usually inefficient. To get to zero you need to clear all inbox emails anyway, so start at the top (the most recent) message. And when you have a clear inbox most days (or at least once a week), you will palpably feel lighter and happier. Try it.

·         Only open a few emails, while archiving/deleting the rest. Most of us subscribe to too many newsletters and every couple of months you’ll find that you’ve again subscribed to more than you read. Simply resolve to open and respond to the personal and private emails. The rest? Categorise according to the aforementioned seven types. And learn how to quickly archive/delete emails in your email client of choice; for example, in Gmail, it’s clicking the checkbox at the top of a page to select all, then click “archive” to get it all out of the inbox. I do this after I’ve responded to the emails I need to respond to. Then, I quickly archive the remainder.

·         Consider creating email templates. Whenever you find yourself replying with the same content, it may be time to copy and paste that content to a document called Email Templates. Whenever you are processing email, open that document.

·         If you have any time remaining to your email processing time, after you do the above, or in your spare time, you can go into your Optional Response & Optional Reading email folders and chip away at them. Remember: they are optional, so just do whatever you have a bit of time for. Balance in your life is more important than clearing your optional folders!

Of course, these are just some suggested guidelines and your line of work can often require you to deal with emails in specific ways. Try these rules as starting point to organise your emails and create your own process to deal with inbox overload.

A System For Email Productivity [Medium]
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In addition to this blog, I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, "Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:
 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki
 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ Rider University and  PSG of Mercer County New Jersey.

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