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PASSing the E-mail test

The US economy loses over $900 billion annually in lost productivity and up to 28 percent of workers’ time due to information overload because of email. The impact is severe – not enough strategic thinking time, lack of work/life balance, and workflow breakdowns.
With billions worth of lost productivity each year, many companies are questioning the value of e-mail and how to bring it back into balance. It would appear on the surface that e-mail is a big problem. However, is e-mail really the problem, or is it the approach to e-mail that’s flawed?
It is easy to see that the real issue is the behaviors employees have adopted and developed around approaching their inboxes, such as:

  • compulsively checking e-mail
  • loosely constructing e-mails
  • holding 1000s of e-mail messages in the inbox

To get e-mail under control, we must first re-examine these approaches, recognize that they may not be working, and replace them with behaviors to manage e-mail more effectively, not just as individuals but as teams and organizations.
I suggest you apply the popular McGhee E-Mail PASS Model the next time you write an important e-mail. It is seen that users spend 32% lesser time, 81% and fewer messages in their inbox when they use this model.
Ask yourself  these four questions while composing e-mails that are lengthy and take more than two minutes to write.

  1. P – What’s the Purpose of your communication and does it relate to a Meaningful Objective? (If it doesn’t relate back to your Meaningful Objectives consider renegotiating or disengaging.)
  2. A – What Action is involved and does it have a due date? (Be clear about what you want the recipient to do: take physical action, respond only, read only, or simply review as an FYI. When using time lines be discerning and make sure they mean something and hold people accountable to your timeliness.)
  3. S – What Supporting documentation do you need to include? (Identifying the supporting information that the recipient needs in order to complete the requested action successfully. This will reduce the likelihood of your message coming back to you with questions.)
  4. S – Have you effectively summarized your communication in the Subject Line? (Follow three elements to a good Subject Line: clarify the meaningful objectives or projects that the e-mail message relates to, clearly indicate the action requested, and identify a due date, if there is one.)

So the next time you write an email, let people talk about your ability to PASS the test.

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