May 28, 2010

Email ennui: we’ve all experienced it. You finally manage to carve out some time away from your desk and your business, only to have it ruined by: a) anxiety that urgent items are slipping through the cracks during your absence, or b) despair that your vacation will be completely neutralized by the massive mound of email that awaits you upon your return.

When it comes to managing email, a regular old “out of the office” message, stating that you will respond upon your return, will no longer suffice. It’s not engaging, and it’s not useful.

Recently, I’ve seen a few more creative approaches to away-from-the-desk email management:

Approach #1: Auto-Filter for Urgent Items Only

During a recent 99% interview, Hype Machine proprietor Anthony Volodkin talked about his approach to email, emphasizing that only about 5 percent of emails really demand urgent attention. While the other 95 percent are a largely irrelevant or unimportant, tending to this urgent 5 percent swiftly can actually increase productivity. So what to do?

One of the best new apps for managing this task is AwayFind. It seamlessly syncs with Gmail and allows you to create specific filters that identify an “urgent” message – they could be from a specific person, based on key word, and so on. AwayFind will then forward the content of that email to you via a phone message, text message, instant message or Twitter. It’s an easy way to avoid monitoring email on vacation, while also ensuring that you are alerted about any truly important items.

It can also help you speedily separate the wheat from the chaffe upon your return.

Approach #2: Avoid Auto-Blandness with a Self-Marketing Twist

Recently, I received a clever auto-reply from Start With Why author and leadership expert Simon Sinek. Rather than using the standard, “I am out of the office until 4/7, and will respond to your message upon my return,” Sinek personalizes his message:

This is an automatic reply for April 5-7

The WHY goes to the midwest.

I'm in Chicago working with the illustrious Maddock Douglas innovation agency to help one of their clients ensure that everything they say and do reflects their WHY.

The goal: drive loyalty.

I won't have any email access until I return on Thursday, April 8th. Please be patient for my response.

Rather than just sharing a dull update, Sinek takes the opportunity to pass on the latest news – namely, his exciting new collaboration with Maddock Douglas. This style of auto-reply serves the threefold purpose of conveying basic “away” information, engaging and intriguing the reader, and tastefully self-marketing.

Granted, it’s not going to cut down on the amount of emails you receive, but it just may capture the interest of potential client, or help strengthen an existing relationship. Sinek’s approach is a useful study in how to maximize the impact of our auto-replies.

Approach #3: Be an Auto-Rebel and Declare Email Bankruptcy

Inspired by venture capitalist Fred Wilson’s bold move, design blogger SwissMiss recently declared “email bankruptcy.” After giving birth to her second child, the SwissMiss found that her email account was so overdrawn, she’d never catch up. So she decided to delete all the unread messages in her inbox and start fresh.

They key to this unorthodox move is to publicly declare email bankruptcy. That is, make sure you send a message to all your contacts letting them know you’re deleting messages between April 1^st and May 1^st, for instance. If their message was really important, they’ll send it again. By which point, you’ll be way ahead of the productivity curve, in your newly email-liberated state!

*This post by J.K. Glei is based on research by the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network, the 99% productivity think tank, the Action Method project management application, and the Creative Jobs List.

Join the conversation ( 6 )

• Nora Dunn 1 year 7 months and 3 days ago

  

  I receive more daily emails than I’m generally comfortable with ignoring for more than a couple of days (due to the sheer accumulation of emails to respond to). But I haven’t yet brought myself to the point of sorting them with a tool like Away Find…partly because I (unfortunately) chose Hotmail as my email provider many moons ago before Gmail came around and now it seems like too daunting a task to switch over. I wish there were more sorting tools for Hotmail; it seems that Gmail currently leads the market in webmail services that cater to mobile professionals. Maybe if (or – shudder – when) I have to declare email bankruptcy, I’ll make the jump over to Gmail. For now….I’ll find a way to create filters to sift through the email chaos. Thanks for the tips!

• Jillian Plomin 1 year 8 months and 14 days ago

  

  I particularly like the 2nd one - I'll have to use that for my maternity time coming up!

• David Lightweis 1 year 8 months and 14 days ago

  

  Auto-reply is a complete and TOTAL embarassment. If you use it please STOP. First, I don't want to know that you're so important as to need to send me an automatic e-mail telling me that you're "unavailable." Second, what's wrong with you? You can't respond to e-mail on the road? No laptop? No PDA? Third, even if you can't repond eloquently, you can call me if my e-mail was important. Fourth, I'll bet that 90% of your e-mail you receive to totally unimportant so no repsonse is even needed. Lastly, the President of one of my clients uses it all the time when he's out of town. Of course, he checks his e-mail and usually gets back to me right away...so what's the point of the auto-responder? Personally, I think it should only be used by low level employees to provide the sender with notice to contact someone else in their absence since they have no intention of responding while away, or even looking at their e-mail for that matter. Auto-responder use means that you're at the lowest level of the org chart.

• David Lightweis 1 year 8 months and 14 days ago

  

  Auto-reply is a complete and TOTAL embarassment. If you use it please STOP. First, I don't want to know that you're so important as to need to send me an automatic e-mail telling me that you're "unavailable." Second, what's wrong with you? You can't respond to e-mail on the road? No laptop? No PDA? Third, even if you can't repond eloquently, you can call me if my e-mail was important. Fourth, I'll bet that 90% of your e-mail you receive to totally unimportant so no repsonse is even needed. Lastly, the President of one of my clients uses it all the time when he's out of town. Of course, he checks his e-mail and usually gets back to me right away...so what's the point of the auto-responder? Personally, I think it should only be used by low level employees to provide the sender with notice to contact someone else in their absence since they have no intention of responding while away, or even looking at their e-mail for that matter. Auto-responder use means that you're at the lowest level of the org chart.

• Tom Jelneck 1 year 8 months and 8 days ago

  

  Great post with useful applications. Once we embrace the notion that EVERY potential interaction with a prospect, customer or vendor is an opportunity to engage, wonderful things start to happen. The auto reply is a great example and a great opportunity to market, connect and brand.

• DONNA JOHNSON 1 year 8 months and 10 days ago

  

  Thanks for these interesting and useful tips. I was once forced into email bankruptcy when my email program crashed and I had no backup. While I was terrified at the moment of crash, within a few minutes, I felt a burden lift. Over the course of the next few days, the sky did not fall in. With minimal effort, I was able to pick up where I left off.
  
  I like the sound of Away Find so I plan to check that out for email that comes to my Gmail account.
  
  Thanks for such an informative post.
  
  dM