Email Dashboard

Success.

I spoke w/ a reporter the other day who asked me what I think the top trends in email are going to be over the next year.  All of the points I mentioned were things I feel are required to combat the two biggest problems with email today – a continued increase in the volumes of email people receive and  the continued shift of emails from being simple pieces of information (a replacement for memos) into time and resource intensive documents (a sort of lightweight project management system).  Here are the two I felt were most important and likely to become major trends over the next year.

The first trend I see starting already is a push towards more and more software automation of email processing.  At ClearContext we’re focused on automating as much of this as possible (prioritizing the email, linking the email to associated tasks/appts/etc., automatic filing and categorization of messages, and much more) for Microsoft Outlook users.  A number of tools companies like Claritude are emerging to help deal with the sheer volume of email people receive – Claritude’s tool focuses on allowing people to file messages as quickly as possible.  Zimbra, an open source messaging provider, has an interesting take on this with Zimlets.  By allowing developers to link external data directly to emails in their system, users can do things like view driving directions for an address from within that email window.  These are just a couple of examples out of numerous companies I could mention that are all addressing what I see as the same fundamental challenge – helping users process through each individual email as quickly as possible.

The second trend I think will become more and more common over the next year or two is companies putting email usage policies in place for their employees.  Even the best productivity methodologies and software products can’t solve the fundamental problem of people having more to do in a day than they have time to get done.  Obviously, project plans, schedules, task lists and similar tracking mechanisms help organizations manage this.  However, as email becomes more and more widely used across all sorts of companies, becoming not only the default communication mode for many, but also the default mode via which to request assistance, updates, and assign tasks, the info in those tracking mechanisms is easily prone to becoming out-of-date.  One major issue in the shift from phone communications to email communications by a lot of people is the fact that individuals are now able to generate far greater demands on other people’s time while using far less of their own.  What do I mean by that?  Well, if I want to get an update on a customer account from you over the phone that takes 15 minutes, it will take up 15 minutes of both of our time.  So, I am forced to be aware of how much time I am requesting from you.  On the other hand, I can in a few seconds email you requesting you to email me an update about that account.  This type of thing can easily spiral out of control within companies and keep people from being able to focus on their core objectives.  I predict that more and more companies will develop email usage guidelines and policies for their employees as more and more employee time gets sucked up by ad-hoc tasks coming to them over email.

Scoble today wrote about losing the battle against email and being unable to keep up – he currently has over 1500 emails he needs to deal with.  As I responded with a couple of ideas to help him out (Ten a day and my email mgmt strategy) it hit me that being successful at taking and keeping control of email is really just the same as any other major focus area in our lives that requires discipline and commitment.

Losing weight.
Running a marathon.
Getting stronger at the gym.
Eating healthy.

All of these are things that are not inherently complicated or tough to achieve with proper discipline, commitment, and motivation.  But so many people struggle with trying to succeed at these tasks.  Why is that?  Often it’s because these goals simply aren’t made a priority in their lives.

Keeping on top of email is exactly the same thing.  If you don’t make it a priority, create a strategy to keep control of your email, and stick to that strategy, you will find yourself losing control again.  And as Robert alludes to, getting behind on email can result in so many other problems nowadays – missing appointments, deadlines, etc.  As I wrote previously, Email is real work and needs to be treated and scheduled for as such.  Carve out time to deal with email and make that as much of a priority as getting any other task done.

I challenge anyone who is having trouble staying on top of their email to set a simple goal.  Have 300 less emails in your inbox (or wherever you keep your pending emails) in one month.  See how many emails you have in your inbox.  Don’t end your workday each day until that number is ten less than the day before.  Stick to this and I am confident many of you will be reducing at a rate of far more than 10 per day soon, and more importantly, will be on the path towards staying in control of your email.

Now if I can just keep on top of writing for my blog more consistently (like writing up my additional thoughts on beta programs I’ve been putting off for far too long)…