Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

THE FORMULA
First lets work out how big the problem is for you. Using this simple formula you will be able to calculate how much time you are spending in email. For ease of an example let say that you receive on average one email every 30 minutes. So in a usual 8 hour working day that will be 16 emails. You will read 100% of those emails and you reply to about 50% of them. If we say that to read an email takes about 1 minute (this includes clicking to open the message, reading it, deleting or archiving it and then getting back to what you were doing before). For an email that requires a response we will be generous and say it requires an additional 1 minutes to write and send a reply email (we all know that some can take a lot longer!). So in one day;

16 emails received and read x 1 minutes = 16 minutes
8 emails responded that require additional time x 1 minutes = 8 minutes
16 + 8 = 24 minutes a day spent in emails.

The formula looks like this;
E = (M x A) + (I x L)

E = Estimated time spent in your email
M = Mails received in a day
A = Actual minutes required to read and archive/delete an email
I = Number of emails you require your Involvement
L = How many minutes Longer it takes respond to an email

Using myself as an example, I used to be a victim of excessive email involvement. The result of my calculation looked something like this;
(120 x 1) + (60 x 1) = 180 minutes

That is 3 hours! Yes THREE hours of a day spent in emails. Now multiply it by a regular 5 day working week that is 15 hours a week spent in emails. That is about 2 days of my working week in emails. You can now begin see the scale of excessive email involvement.

THE SOLUTION!
The great news is that there is process that you can follow to reduce this time. The solution is two-fold. First you have to reduce the number of emails you receive to be as close to the number of emails that need your response. Second you need to put processes in place that reduce the number of emails that need you involvement.

If you break down emails you will find they all fall under one of the following categories;
1. BAD INFORMATION: Emails that do not inform you of anything relevant (i.e Spam)
2. NO RESPONSE: Emails that are to inform you that do not need your response (i.e Newsletters)
3. RESPONSE: Emails that are to inform you and need your response (i.e A question requiring your feedback)

So lets investigate how you can reduce each type on an individual basis.

1. Bad Information emails need to be completely eliminated.
i) Out dated newsletters.
We all have them. These are newsletter that we have subscribed to in the past and now when they come in we just delete them. As you have seen just this deletion takes time and it all adds up so when the next one comes in, don’t delete – click the relevant links to unsubscribe yourself.
ii) Actual Spam
Eliminating spam could be a task that you cannot personally fulfill and may need involvement from an IT department. But ultimately you need to get the wheels in motion which ever way you can and block common domains that spam and install/update better spam filters.

2. No response emails require a bit more work as they generally involve real people but ultimately these need to be eliminated.
i) Peers cc’ing you in.
If you are only being cc’d in on something that generally means that someone is being lazy in communication in some other way. Examine the emails you are cc’d in on and take note of any that don’t need any response from you. Now reply to all the people in that email (reply-all) stating that you ‘do not need to be cc’d in on these kinds of emails‘ and then delegate someone in that cc list to forward on anything that actually requires a response in the way of a decision or action from you.
ii) Subscription Newsletters
Some newsletters give you exclusive information that is unavailable elsewhere. These can be useful and are probably the only type of ‘No Response’ emails that are acceptable to receive. However you must unsubscribe yourself from all newsletters that just summarize website updates just forwarding you a collection of the latest press releases or headlines from a website. 90% of what you will read in these types of newsletters will not be relevant or be of interest to you so unsubscribe to these newsletters and if you must, bookmark the site and/or register to the RSS feed.

3. Response emails need to be assessed and reduced. You will be unable to eliminate these completely but you can reduce them significantly.
i) Write Closed emails
We all get them. Its people being lazy and taking up two, three or four emails to get a collection of decisions agreed. A common examples is people trying to organize meetings. A emails conversation may go something like this;
Person A – Hi, are you available this week for a meeting?
You - Yes when do you want to do it?
Person A – When are you free
You - I’m free Wednesday all day
Person A – I’m not in Wednesday can you make Thursday
You - Yes can do Thursday what time
Person A – How about 3pm Thursday
You – Perfect, shall I come up to you?
Person A – Yeah can do, I’ll book a room and then get back to you to confirm.
You – That speak soon.

If you look carefully even after five emails there are still more emails to follow as Person A has to get back and confirm! Now how about changing this email conversation to get everything out the way as quickly as possible;

Person A - Hi, are you available this week for a meeting?
You - Yes. I’m free all day Wednesday, Thursday at 3pm onwards and Friday morning before 11am. Select any of these times that are convenient for you. Confirm the details with me once you have booked the room.
Person A – Hi, Board room booked for 3pm Thursday. See you then.

There you go all the details confirmed and you have sent only one email!

ii) Delegate responsibly
You need to treat emails that require your response and in the same way you reduced ‘Peers cc’ing you in’ (2-i). You must identify people that can answer on your behalf or in place of you. Write something like this;

Frank - Hi, we have finished the first design of your site (see attached). Can you let me know if everything is OK so far?
You (Reply to Frank – cc Bob in) – Hello Frank, thanks for your email on this, moving forward please direct these queries to Bob, he will inform me if anything requires my input. Bob, please let me know if you have any problems but I’ll leave this in your hands now, there is no need to cc me in on communication unless you need a direct response or you have a problem. Thanks

PUT IT INTO PRACTICE
Now it over to you. I suggest you don’t put anything in practice straight away. In-order to feel achievement or success you always need to know where you have come from. So for one working week just assess the scale of your excessive email involvement using E=(MxA)+(IxL).