Email ProductivityErnie Svenson & Dane Ciolino

Who are these guys?

Ernie SvensonBigLaw - 20 yrs

Solo Practice - 5 yrs

ErnieTheAttorney.net

PDFforLawyers.com

PaperlessChase.com

Digital Signatures are easy to make

Alvin Christovich, Distinguished Professor of Law, Loyola Univ.

LaLegalEthics.org

Dane Ciolino

Agenda

Processing email

Not Outlook specific (for the most part)

What’s possible?

Best practices

How to efficiently manage information

minimize “information overload”

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Email OverloadThe average corporate executive gets between 50 and 100 emails every day...

Not built for mass communication

“Email bankruptcy”

Unified messaging increases load

Email challenges

Processing emails

Delete

Defer

Suspend for later

Delegate

Act

Review

GTD system: inbox process

Delete liberally (it’s fun; try it!)

Flag important stuff

No responses now

Only exception: critical email

Acknowledge receipt: say you’ll respond later

First Run

Batch processing

Process once or twice a dayOnly check few times a day

67%of emails are never printed out (which means 33% of people do print out their emails)

Friendsdon’t let friends print out emails

Incoming emails

Filtering is key(& the cure to “information overload”)

A few are okay; too many are bad

Outook folders have definite limits

The “inbox” is a folder; not built to handle the volume that many people impose on it.

Will crash Outlook, or corrupt files

Folders (manual filtering)

filter inbound & outbound

based on sender, recipient, or subject line

“Unread emails” is a smart folder

“Flagged folder” is smart folder

Smart folders (auto filtering/rules)

Outgoing emails

Readability is Job #1

What action do you want reader to take?

Who really needs to be notified

Do you need to change the subject line?

Topic shifts happen; adjust subject line

Is this really a calendar appt?

Before composing ask:

Response type

Email (obvious, but not always optimal)

Phone call

best for hashing out indefinite stuff

if you’re driving

if last minute change (can’t assume people read email as it comes in)

Don’t respond right away (usually)

Quick responses = fast paced ping pong matches

Acknowledge receipt & promise reply soon

Upon receipt of email

Composing emails

Writing that works

Kenneth RomanJoel Raphaelson

Brevity, simplicity

No more than 6 sentences (ideally)

Use short, common words

Use short sentences

Get to the point quickly!

Body of email

Inline quoting is optimal

Avoid “Reply All”

Before hitting “Reply All” make sure you weren’t bcc’d

Be careful with autocomplete

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out

Replying effectively

leftv

Avoid using “Reply All”

Specify who email is really for (if sent to more than just those who need to take action)

Use of blind copy (bcc) for large email sets (& send to yourself)

Addressing

Subject line(the most powerful tool for clarity)

Study Wall St. Journal headlines: learn to craft enticing subject lines

Consider putting message in subject line for short messages

Send separate emails for separate topics

If need long email, then use headings

Make clear & compelling

Attention-getting examples

Re: your AT&T International Roaming Charges

Re: what seems to have once been your car

To my former sexual partners, as required by law

Write "thanks," or "cheers" or "best wishes" & then your name

Make use of signatures (you can have more than one)

Always give your phone number

Don’t need your email address there

No graphic signatures

Ending emails

& the David Sparks solutionMissing attachments

Attach the file first

Next, fill in the body text

Create a succinct subject line

Last, address the email (thus avoiding sending without attaching file)

Work backwards

Services that specialize

You Send It

SugarSync, or Dropbox

Adobe SendNow (Outlook Plug-in available)

Sending large files

(avoid them; they’re out of style)Out of office msgs

Spam(a really hard problem to solve)

“Social engineering”

Never click on links from banks or password-protected sites

Navigate to site yourself

Scammers getting more sophisticated

Password managers help (e.g. 1Password, or LastPass)

Phishing scams

Summary

Develop a good process; make it a habit

Strong subject lines (change if needed)

Separate emails for each topic

Learn & use shortcuts

Be careful with bcc, and auto-complete

Don’t use inbox as a warehouse

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dciolino@gmail.comesvenson@gmail.com{email