GUIDELINES FOR A SUCCESSFUL RENTREE

Published on September 16 2015

GUIDELINES FOR A SUCCESSFUL RENTREE

September is a busy month in France. The holidays are over; the young children go back to school, the students go back to university and most adults go back to work. Such is the importance of this September rentrée, that it took me a while to realise that when somebody talks to you about a project “for next year”, they are probably referring to September rather than January. After all, the concept of a new start is much less developed on the other side of the Channel.

A quick look at the business magazines in the newspaper kiosks or self-help manuals in the bookshops could lead you to the following conclusion – the September rentrée is a good time for making new resolutions and putting them in place.

As a result, I’ll be writng a few posts to share some useful insights for improving your productivity in the office while also reducing your stress.

The topic I’m focusing on this week is how to better manage your emails. According to a recent opinion poll, more than a quarter of employees in France spend more than two-hours per day just managing their emails, 61% read their messages in the evening and 41% during their holidays. So it’s hardly surprising that more than 48% see emails as a source of stress.

Here are a few questions to consider:

how many emails do you receive each day?
how many of them are really useful for you?
how much time do you spend reading and/or replying to them?
how often do you have to read a message twice because it is not clear or the key points are difficult to find?
don't you find it irritating when you receive a message which doesn’t answer your question or you need to send another message which asks for clarification of the first answer?

We call this last point email ping-pong…and I’m sure you been in this situation more than once!

Here are a few guidelines which, although they won’t reduce the number of messages you have to deal with, should help you to become less of a slave to your Inbox.

TIME FRAMES: try to fix two or three moments during the day when you focus exclusively on your emails. For example, at the beginning of the day (just after you’ve updated your to-do list and greeted some of your colleagues…remember to finish coming in), just after lunch and just before you go home. At other times of the day, turn off any noisy alerts so that you don’t get side-tracked or feel tempted to see if someone has sent you a message.

Remember: Most emails don’t need to be answered in fewer than 30 seconds.

TIDY UP: unsubscribe to any newsletters that don’t really interest you anymore; be wary of messages sent to groups of people – perhaps you’re not concerned; make sure that all important messages have been read and/or answered before you leave work. If, for some reason you can’t finish something, write on your to-do list what you need to do and/or who you need to speak to so you can begin the next day by tacking this high priority task.

Remember: When you leave work, leave your work behind! It’s important to switch off and relax during the evenings.

FILE: rather than create a box called “urgent”, create a series of files either named by project, client or supplier. This should help you find more quickly a message about a specific topic.

THINK RECIPIENT: before you write – let alone, send – your message, think about your recipient. What exactly do they need to know? Is it possible to summarize your message in a short sentence in the object box of your email? Better to write “Meeting September 21st cancelled” rather than “Meeting September 21st – URGENT”. Otherwise, try to use bullet points, rather than long prosaic sentences, to make the key points stand out.

Remember: Begin with the conclusion rather than with a long introduction to and your analysis of the issue in hand.

ATTACHMENTS: it can so be frustrating when you receive a message without the aforementioned attachment and you waste more time having to ask for it; and it can be really embarrassing for you if you forget the attachment and have to send another message with an apology.

Remember: Why not begin by attaching the document/file or whatever, and finish by writing the email.

As I said, while these guidelines will not reduce the volume of messages you receive, you should be able to spend less time managing them – and so should your correspondents, so it’s a win-win scenario.

And in conclusion, just ask yourself – do I need to send a message? Could I call the person instead, or even see them if it is a colleague? It could be easier to discuss the issue together and then send an email summary afterwards.

And it’s also a friendlier way of doing business…maybe that should be your key objective for this year’s rentrée!