Email Best Practices 2.0

When we ask clients to look at their task management-related emails, it’s surprising how many there really are. The problem is that email wasn’t designed for task management. Tasks are too important and it’s too easy to miss one if there are too many.

What to do?

Try this. Have a look at the types of emails in your Inbox. As a quick research exercise:

1. Identify the emails related to task management;
2. For each type (assignment, revisions, status, reporting, renegotiation, etc.) assess how appropriate it is for the email channel;
3. Consider how you can handle these types by non-email ways (status meetings, reports);
4. Open a discussion with your team to decide on a communication best practice for managing tasks.

I think you too will be surprised how many emails you can readily move to other communication channels. And you may well see where the communication hot spots are with your team members.