Taming Your Email
A Two-Part Video-Conferenced Seminar to support you in using your email effectively and efficiently.
This seminar presents best practices and practical techniques to support you in communicating effectively using email. None of this knowledge makes any difference unless it's put into practice. With the support of the group, you'll come up with a practical strategy for making effective use of email that you'll put to the test as you go through this two-part seminar.
What Past Attendees Are Saying About This Seminar
“I found Tim’s workshop a great use of time. It’s helped me become more productive, not only in how I use email but also technology in general. I feel more spacious with my time and would recommend this workshop to anyone feeling overwhelmed with their inbox.”
—Saul Brown, Saul Good Gift Co.
Seminar Overview
Develop Your Email Strategy.
Taming your email is spread over two sessions, typically about two weeks apart. During the first session, you’ll learn best practices for managing the deluge of incoming emails, composing effective emails and using email within a team environment. Working with other people in the seminar, you’ll formulate a plan to shift your email habits and to apply best practices.
Armed with a Personal Email Strategy™, you’ll put what you’ve learned into practice in your day-to-day life and work. In the second session, you’ll reconvene with your group to share what worked, and what didn’t work and to fine-tune your personal strategies. The second session also includes additional strategies and techniques for taking your email productivity to the next level.
More Information
How It Works & What's Included.
The first session focuses on best practices for managing and composing emails.
You’ll have the opportunity to evaluate your current email practices and, with some help from the group, will formulate your Personal Email Strategy. This is a set of email practices designed to match the needs of your life and work.
The following topics will be covered during the first session:
- Best practices for dealing with the deluge of incoming email. Every email you receive takes some of your time and attention. You’ll learn about ways to limit the number of emails that land in your inbox so that you can free up some of your time and attention for more productive pursuits.
- Developing Productive Email Habits. Checking email frequently and at all hours of the day is typically unnecessary and counterproductive. You’ll have the opportunity to evaluate your current email habits and to articulate new ones to create in their place.
- Writing effective emails. This includes writing emails that are clear and consistent and make good use of the subject line. We’ll also talk about being mindful of who’s going to receive your messages and how you can model effective email practices for your friends, colleagues, and clients.
- Using email in a team environment. When using email in a team setting, it’s important to establish guidelines on how email will be used by members of the team. This includes things such as expected response times and the formatting of subject lines. We’ll explore some strategies for effective team communications.
You’ll complete session with the first draft of your Personal Email Strategy. You’ll put this strategy to the test in between the two sessions and will have the opportunity to review and tweak your strategy in the second session.
Between Session 1 and Session 2 you’ll have the opportunity put your Personal Email Strategy to the test. This typically includes:
- Rethinking the Inbox. For example, if you’ve developed a habit around using the inbox as a to-do list (something we don’t recommend), you could start the process of putting a new practice in place, that might include making use of an “Action” folder and a task manager.
- Refining Your Email Habits. As we discuss in Session 1, email can become addictive. If you’re in the habit of checking email more frequently than you need to, your personal strategy may include starting to reduce this frequency, shifting towards more productive habits.
- Writing more effective emails. The best practices we cover in Session 1 provide some practical ways to write more effective emails. Your strategy may involve experimenting with different ways of communicating through email.
- Using email more effectively in your team. If you’re part of a team, you’ll have the opportunity to evaluate the way your team uses email and to come up with some guidelines to use email more effectively. If you work for yourself, you can look at how you could communicate more effectively with collaborators and clients.
After completing Session 1, you’ll put your Personal Email Strategy to the test, applying best practices out in the “real world” and noticing the impact they have on yourself and others.
Session 2 is an opportunity to reconvene as a group and shine the spotlight on what worked, and what still needs work. Drawing upon the insights that surface you’ll refine your Personal Email Strategy and put a plan in place to tame unwieldy inboxes.
You’ll also learn about new technologies you can use to make your email more manageable and effective:
- Managing the Deluge. Learn how you can use the SaneBox to dramatically reduce the amount of email that ends up in your inbox. We’ll also look at how task managers like OmniFocus and Todoist can be used to manage requests received by email.
- Email Habits. Building on what was covered in Part 1, we’ll look at ways to cultivate positive new email habits. This could include using RescueTime to keep track of the amount of time you spend on email and to help ensure that your email usage is headed in the right direction.
- Writing Effective Emails. We’ll look at how TextExpander can be used to increase the efficiency of your email communications and how Grammarly can be used to avoid embarrassing typos. We’ll also explore how Boomerang for Gmail can be used both to schedule emails and to help ensure that a response is received. And we’ll explore scheduling solutions such as Doodle and ScheduleOnce, that can dramatically reduce the number of emails you send and receive.
- Using Email in a Team Environment. Sometimes email isn’t the best choice for management and communications. We’ll take a look at a popular project management solutions like Asana and Trello that, if used effectively, can greatly reduce the amount of email that needs to be exchanged within teams, while also provide a more convenient and efficient way to manage projects than is possible with email.
- Email Security. It’s important to put measures in place to help ensure unauthorized access to your email. We’ll briefly look at how 1Password and LastPass can help in this regard.
As you go through this session you’ll identify those technologies that you want to adopt in the short-term and those that you’re planning to investigate further in the near future.
Your registration in Taming Your Email includes:
- Personal Email Strategy Workbook. You’ll use this workbook to define and refine your Personal Email Strategy as you go through the seminar.
- Access to the Taming Your Email Resources Page. This page contains additional resources, links to recommended books and articles and more.
- Recordings of Best Practices. You’ll have access to recordings of informational portions of the seminar for future review. Please note that watching these recordings is not a substitute for attending the live seminar. and that group sharing won’t be included in the recordings.
Your registration in Taming Your Email includes:
- Personal Email Strategy Workbook. You’ll use this workbook to define and refine your Personal Email Strategy as you go through the seminar.
- Access to the Taming Your Email Resources Page. This page contains additional resources, links to recommended books and articles and more.
- Recordings of Best Practices. You’ll have access to recordings of informational portions of the seminar for future review. Please note that watching these recordings is not a substitute for attending the live seminar and that group sharing won’t be included in the recordings.
What Past Attendees Are Saying About This Course
Upcoming Taming Your Email Seminars
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