The writers over at IT Pro at SMH have delivered another article to help us all manage our email inbox. They offer tips to effectively manage the stream of communication, many of which will be familiar to you (such as switching off auto alerts). Its worth a read to see if there are any new tips you can take on board.
What I like about this article is the advocacy for alternative tools for communication such as instant messaging and cloud based document storage. Here are some highlights to entice you to the story.
An overflowing inbox is the enemy of productivity, according to experts.
University of Queensland strategic communications lecturer Sean Ritnel said companies around the world were tackling inbox management, completely eliminating internal emails and using micro-blogging, scheduling and instant messaging platforms instead.
...“Email is used because it's convenient and everyone's got it, so it's the lowest common denominator, but there's so many more tools that are more appropriate for each given task."...
Atos chief executive Thierry Breton announced he was setting a goal of no internal emails, forcing the company's 74,000 employees to communicate with each other via instant messaging and a Facebook-style interface.
“I think the burden is on organisations to provide more centralised data searching for all those documents that we need to read - that shouldn't be sent via email, but should be stored in a cloud - and that can be accessed anywhere in the world so it's easily accessible,” Dr Ritnel said.