There are few things worse than walking out of a meeting, looking down at your phone, and seeing emails numbering in the double digits awaiting your response. If you travel or take vacation, the number grows even larger. It can take hours to comb through all of those messages. You probably don’t have the time […]
Archive for email
BONUS: Communication Breakdown Q&A
Today’s episode is from a Facebook Live that Michael and Megan did on the topic of communication breakdowns. They took questions from viewers and we’ve collected some of the best questions and answers so that you can gain important insight into how to manage your own communication breakdowns. Enjoy!
How to Get Out of Email Jail
As a leader, you pride yourself on being proactive and in control. But one area feels like a perpetual dumpster fire—email! It’s all communications, really. Slack messages, texts, voicemail, it’s a constant burn. When will it end?
What Most People Get Wrong About Inbox Zero
And How to Keep It from Making Your Email Problems Worse
Email is indispensable. But it can feel like a necessary evil for a lot of us. Our inboxes are flooded with information and requests from customers, clients, coworkers, friends, and family. Not to mention all the spam, BACN, and random junk. I’ve seen inboxes with tens of thousands of emails—hundreds, even thousands unread. People feel […]
3 Ways Email Can Sabotage Your Leadership
When to Use It—and When to Avoid It Like the Plague
When I was the CEO at Thomas Nelson, one of our authors was frustrated. In response to a disappointing sales report, he fired off a blistering email to one of our divisional leaders. He complained about poor results. He criticized the sales strategy and our failure to execute. Worse, he challenged the leader’s intelligence, competence, […]
Why I Changed My Email Newsletter Strategy
3 Reasons Behind My New Approach
I decided to change my email newsletter strategy last month. For years, I sent the entire blog post in the body of the email. We used a custom template that included many of the design elements from my blog. For a long time, that served us well. But we are no longer doing that. Instead, […]
What the Success of Slack Can Teach Us about Creating Winning Products
I love watching people succeed, especially if I can learn something I can apply in my own life and share with you. That’s why I’m excited about what I learned from watching Slack’s success this year. Slack is a communications tool that enables natural and effective team collaboration. The company, started by Stewart Butterfield, the […]
How I Cut My Email Load by 83% in Less Than a Week
Lousy communications is one of the biggest challenges any team faces. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost files, even whole conversation threads, in email. And no one likes triaging an inbox, even with a good system. So what if we had a better solution? We do, thanks to a team of online […]
Declare Email Bankruptcy and Get a Fresh Start
You know it’s time to declare email bankruptcy when you are experiencing the following four symptoms. If this is true of you, I provide a seven-step strategy for wiping the digital slate clean and starting over.
Yes, You Can Stay on Top of E-mail
4 Behaviors Designed to Make You an Email Ninja
But it is really possible to get caught up on your email and stay caught up? Yes. I’ve done so for years, even as the demands of my job have increased. I’m not bragging; it’s just a fact. But I should warn you: there is no easy fix. Taking control of your inbox means changing your behavior. You must be willing to make the investment.
10 Strategies for Getting a Faster Response to Your Email
Not everyone thinks it is important to respond quickly to email. How do you get them to respond to you in a timely manner? Here are ten strategies.
Before You Send That Angry E-mail
I have fired off my share of angry letters and e-mail. Honestly, I cannot think of a single time when these communiques had a positive effect. Here are six steps you can take when you are tempted.