Do you find yourself constantly battling a noisy email inbox? In this article, we explore how the fundamental duties of competence, courtesy, and diligence can influence your email management.1
Email is an invaluable tool for business communication, but it can also be a significant source of distraction and disruption.
The arrival of an email in our inbox, whether accompanied by a sound alert or not, is a form of noise. It can easily divert your attention from your current task and interrupt your focus, shifting you from a state of flow to a state of disruption. This requires you to reorient your focus back to the task at hand once the email has been dealt with.
At times, the influx of emails into your inbox can create a bottleneck. The sheer volume of emails can lead to workplace stress, anxiety and overwhelm. This stress and anxiety can become an obstacle to productivity.
How many times have you received a call from a client asking, “Did you receive my email?”
In our world of instant messaging, managing client expectations is crucial for both your file management and your mental health. Consider outlining in your terms of engagement, with the client’s agreement, the timeframes for responding to communications.
If you respond to emails after hours, you are setting an expectation that you may always be available after hours. Remember to make use of the delay send feature to allow you to work after hours if necessary, but schedule the email to be sent during business hours.
There are numerous strategies for managing an inbox. To effectively manage your inbox, you need to implement some noise controls.
Have you subscribed to junk emails? Do these emails need to be in your work inbox? Could you unsubscribe from these distribution lists? Could you set up another account to periodically check these emails? Are you receiving informational emails? Are they necessary? Could you simply move these emails to a separate folder to be read once a week or once a month?
If you find yourself being cc’d on all emails being sent from your office, ask yourself why. Why don’t you have a legal practice management system that stores emails against a client’s matter? Internal conversations can often be better handled in collaboration tools.
Our professional duty of courtesy extends to email. It would be encouraging if all professionals engaged in responsible use of email, considering both the quality and quantity of emails. When sending an email, ask yourself: Are you just creating noise for the recipient? If the recipient is currently on leave, unless urgent, consider scheduling your email to be sent after they return from leave.
The subject description of your email is also important. Matter descriptions are useful, but consider following this with a subject line that communicates the content of the email. For example, “Jones purchase from Smith Matter No: 24-18 – draft settlement figures” or “Jones purchase from Smith Matter No: 24-18 – request for extension of payment of deposit”.
Our professional duty of competence and diligence extends to email. Before sending an email, consider the following:
- Why are you sending this email?
- What are you hoping to achieve by sending this email?
- What are you communicating in this email?
- Is your message clear and concise?
Don’t forget to use headings if that aids readability. Before hitting “send”, take a moment to check you have attached all necessary (and correct) documents to the email.
Consider the recipient of your email. Be purposeful and considerate when addressing emails. Do all recipients need to receive your email, or could they be cc’d as an alternate? Do they need to receive ‘Reply All’ responses? Perhaps a Bcc might be sufficient. Does your legal practice management system file emails in a central file repository? If so, there may be no need to cc or bcc internal recipients at all.
The ‘To’ field is for the key people in the conversation; the ‘Cc’ field is for additional people who might be looped into the communication; the ‘Bcc’ field is for those you wish to keep informed of the matter without the intended recipient knowing.
The ‘Reply All’ function should be used sparingly. Do all parties to the conversation need to know your response, or just the sender? For more information on the use of Cc or Bcc see: To Cc or Bcc, that is the question – email, etiquette and ethics
In conclusion, email management is a crucial aspect of legal practice. By implementing effective strategies and maintaining courtesy in our communications, we can reduce the noise in our inboxes and enhance our productivity. Remember, every email you send contributes to the email traffic of others. Let’s aim to make each email count to reduce the noise and increase the value of our daily communications.
Footnotes
1 Queensland Law Society, Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules (at 1 June 2012) r 4.1.
Share this article