Our Digital World- Email

As we start the New Year, I have developed a couple of work-related resolutions. The first is the continuation of a long-standing resolution to focus on the truly important tasks and not be fooled by urgent or semi-urgent items that masquerade as important. By important, I mean meaningful tasks of lasting value.

The truth is that no matter how long you work or how hard you try, some things will be left undone. Make sure that your undone list has as few important items and as many unimportant items as possible. We focus on our to-do lists, but this year, I plan to focus as much on my not-to-do list.

This year, I also plan to continue my long-standing assault on email. Statistics I’ve read estimate the number of emails sent per day (in 2009) to be around 247 billion. Even granting that 80% of this traffic is spam, that’s an astounding number.

Of course, email can be a great tool, but emails are not always the best medium for dealing with complicated questions. To me, the telephone is much better for providing a richer dialogue and usually a quicker result.

Moreover, as a lawyer, I have seen how emails can compromise the security of an organization, create a bad record and lead to unfortunate misunderstandings. This doesn’t even take into account the many emails that require reading through long email chains to figure out what is going on. I feel like an archaeologist digging through layers of soil to reach the meaning of some emails; and sometimes like the movie Memento, emails are presented in some convoluted backward chronology.

So I offer five starter rules for using email, don’t use emails to air controversies, don’t write what you wouldn’t say to someone’s face, be descriptive in the subject line, keep your writing appropriately short (even terse) and use caution in replying to all.

May all your 2011 resolutions be successful.