Email Hacks: How I (Attempt) To Respond to 100+ Emails a Day
Oh email. Some people don't get any at all; some get a lot. Some people have to power to not answer emails, unfortunately it's a huge part of my job. Community managers are in constant communication with team members and said managed community - this includes emails.
Oh email. Some people don't get any at all; some get a lot. Some people have to power to not answer emails, unfortunately it's a huge part of my job. Community managers are in constant communication with team members and said managed community - this includes emails.
"If it's important they'll email twice" - have you heard that before? That's actually a terrible philosophy, particularly if you are a representative in your user community or a manager. Over the past few years I've picked up a few tips and tricks that help me get through this abundance of daily emails.
First Things First, Data!
Do you even know how much email you get? Who's sending it? Who are you responding to the most and how fast? Meet Gmail Meter - it's just a simple Gmail script but at the end of each month it sends you all kinds of data on your email:
Where are you spending most of your time? Who's sending you tons of email? I personally like to measure how long my emails are outbound vs. how long emails are that people send to me. Which brings me to...
TL;DR - Make Emails Short
Your emails should be 3-5 sentences. If you must make them longer, provide a TL;DR at the top. Sometimes you need to provide links, more information, etc which is fine, just make sure the important information is in the top 3 sentences. For you as a sender, the reader will only read the first 3-5 lines which you know is true for the mail you receive too. Thus, I fly through emails because I don't read past the 3rd sentence.
I would actually recommend crafting important emails like you would a PR person pitching a journalist to make sure they are read and responded to. Short and Sweet.
Make Responses Actionable
You know when you send an email and the person comes back with a million questions? Or maybe the email just says...nothing. When you respond to an email thread try to close it out - meaning create action items and/or end the conversation. Here's an example:
"Did you see this event? It looks like it might be valuable for us to attend or sponsor. What do you think?"
Your response might be:
"Does look interesting! Any details on sponsorship? What fun things could we do there?"
That response is terrible! You just spurred a never-ending email thread. Here's what your response should be:
"Looks valuable. You take lead on getting sponsorship information. I'll coordinate with team to figure out who is available to attend and let's put a 30 min time on the calendar to re-group on Thursday."
Now people are moving to action and you won't have another email on that thread. Great job! Always Be Closing...email threads.
Timing is Everything
If you work in Startup Land, do not try to do emails Sunday evening - you will just get responses from everyone and start Monday with inbox 200. My general tips for timing include:
- Monday is email day - commit and knock it out. It's what everyone else is doing anyways.
- Evenings and particularly Friday afternoons are GREAT for emails - no one responds, you will get to inbox zero and close out everything for the day or week.
- Sunday afternoon is risky, definitely don't hang around your inbox after 3pm.
- See top right graph.
Boomerang isn't a Tool, It's a Lifestyle
If you have yet to discover Boomerang by Baydin, now is the time. Get emails out of your inbox and have them return to you when you're ready to take action. Think about email follow ups, get it sent back to you if no one responds to a thread or when you need to re-ping someone. Now with calendar integration you can set meetings and dates without leaving your inbox.
Go Forth, Find Email Productivity
The most important part of email productivity is to get out of your inbox. You have to get up from beneath the daily grind to strategize, plan and move things forward. Best of luck to everyone with exploding inboxes.
How to Make A Wes Anderson-Inspired Family Christmas Video
After a family viewing of Moonrise Kingdom, and the opportunity of days without any obligations (read: nothing to do), we decided to shoot our own short film as a a tribute to Wes Anderson. I highly suggest this creative exercise during your next family holiday. Here are the tips and tricks we used while making our Wes Anderson-inspired Christmas video:
After a family viewing of Moonrise Kingdom, and the opportunity of days without any obligations (read: nothing to do), we decided to shoot our own short film as a a tribute to Wes Anderson. I highly suggest this creative exercise during your next family holiday. Here are the tips and tricks we used while making our Wes Anderson-inspired Christmas video:
1) Third-person narrative: potentially omniscient. Use this to frame your story line and also move the plot along. We choose to use the youngest and cutest member of the family
3) Foreground vs Background: have something serious happening in the foreground, with something completely unrelated and active in the background. Neither acknowledge the other.
4) Alternative Indie music choice: Wes Anderson listens to better music than all of us. Choose something hip.
5) Font choice: for the introduction and/or if you choose to do a 'Rushmore'-style montage you'll need a really great font. If you are using iMovie just use Helvetica.
We added a few other Wes Anderson-inspired elements like a tinted filter but left out one like obligatory smoking character. Special thanks to our actors, my nephews, brother and brother-in-law, and our creative director and video editor, my boyfriend. Enjoy!
The Fully Accessible Life of Convenience
The trend of startups providing services to make your life more efficient and convenient is more than just nice, it's something I can't imagine living without. Free time is valuable and becoming more rare every passing day. I will gladly pay to steal some of that time back. Luckily with all these startups, I don't have to pay that much to make a huge impact in my daily life. Here's a few of my favorites:
The trend of startups providing services to make your life more efficient and convenient is more than just nice, it's something I can't imagine living without. Free time is valuable and becoming more rare every passing day. I will gladly pay to steal some of that time back. Luckily with all these startups, I don't have to pay that much to make a huge impact in my daily life. Here's a few of my favorites:
Taskrabbit - this is for any task you can imagine, people. I've hired Taskrabbits for groceries, Fedex Kinko's runs, cleaning, even moving apartments. Estimated time saved per task = 1-3 hours
Uber - aside from the fact you cannot catch a cab in San Francisco, Uber also keeps you safe (did someone say catch a cab on 6th street at 1am?), comes immediately when called and does so in style. Estimated time saved per Uber = 15 - 30 min + 15 style points
Postmates - bike messengers are great, but even better is when they bring me food. Who has time to actually go to lunch? I definitely don't. They just started doing runs to Whole Foods too. Estimated time saved per Postmate = 30 - 45 min
Fab - this is not a necessity, but when I needed to decorate my apartment it really came in handy. Rugs, prints, pillows, furniture - you name it. Check the app, purchase, boom: apartment furnished. Estimated time saved per Fab purchase = 2-4 hours [Lest not forget the incredible Gilt and Rue La La - I purchase all of my clothes and shoes online, usually on the go via my phone]
Manpacks - holy crap if I was a dude I'd live by this. Monthly packages of underwear and razors! Estimated time saved per Manpack = 1-2 hours
Your local wash and fold - this saves me the most time each month. At $1 a pound it's about the same as my quarter laundry machines and they fold my clothes much nicer than I do. Estimated time saved per month = 4-6 hours
I don't throw money at these things purely for the sake of convenience, I choose to pay a little more so that I can truly enjoy the free time I have away from work. With all the time I save I can do things like truly enjoy the city I live in, travel to visit home in North Carolina, or take mini-vacations with the guy I love. In the end these things are worth the extra money. What are you using to steal back time in your life?
Hey Companies! What Not to Do When You Discontinue a Feature
It's a casualty of technology, especially being an early adopter. Investing your time and energy into new products is risky. You may get your friends to adopt and even your parents to be interested, spending meticulous time getting your new profile set up. But alas, sometimes you will lose the features you love or worst case, the company has to pivot to something completely new leaving you, the user, left holding the bag.
It's a casualty of technology, especially being an early adopter. Investing your time and energy into new products is risky. You may get your friends to adopt and even your parents to be interested, spending meticulous time getting your new profile set up. But alas, sometimes you will lose the features you love or worst case, the company has to pivot to something completely new leaving you, the user, left holding the bag.
I recently had a service discontinue a feature I really liked (and spent hours building content around) which was unfortunate, but the worst part was the way it was handled by the company. As a user of many Internet things, and a community manager by trade, here's what not to do when a company discontinues a feature.
Do Not: Take the feature away without mentioning it to your users.
Your users will notice, even if it's a small percentage utilizing the feature. What makes the community mad is if you take away the feature without warning and force them to figure out "WTF happened?".
Do: Communicate openly with your users
People want companies to be transparent and genuine. Be honest if the feature just didn't work or it's something that just can't be supported. People will get over it. Hopefully you've done a little user testing before you make the final decision.
Do Not: Take away a feature without providing a secondary solution
Ok, so you took away the feature. Now what? Again, you're forcing your users to go out into the Internet wilderness to find another solution and they will have to trial and error new things. And when those new things aren't as good they will curse you for making them have to go find a replacement.
Do: Provide suggestions for what your users should do now
Is there another way to do the same thing within your product? Do you have some great partners to work with? Or maybe you have other companies you like that can offer a solution? Roll up all of these things and give this valuable information to your users.
Do Not: Point your users to a separate solution they have to pay for
"We took away this feature, but we just partnered with XX that will provide a new solution! It's only $100 a year, that's a discount!" I got that message in real life - actually minus the communication about the feature being gone, that was never mentioned. I don't think I have to explain this one but overall don't tell your users to go pay for something else.
Do: See my second suggestion
Partner with another solution that will give your users options, ideally free to inexpensive.
Companies are people and they make mistakes but hopefully this particular group will learn from it.
Juice It, All of It
I’m a big proponent of cleansing. Vegan, raw food, juice cleanses, coconut water…maybe I’m just a fan of food fads but regardless if you stick to the healthy ones it will have a positive impact. These cleanses are a physical and mental reset, plus a challenge is good for you. Put down the burrito! Lay off the wine! Y
I’m a big proponent of cleansing. Vegan, raw food, juice cleanses, coconut water…maybe I’m just a fan of food fads but regardless if you stick to the healthy ones it will have a positive impact. These cleanses are a physical and mental reset, plus a challenge is good for you. Put down the burrito! Lay off the wine! You’ll feel freakin’ amazing and you’ll tred lightly before jumping on binge train next time it comes around. My current favorite cleanse is the juice cleanse, though important to call out the correct kind of juice cleanse. There are no supplements or weird teas masking as nutrition *ahem Master Cleanse cough*. A proper juice cleanse will provide sufficient nutrition and calories for each day. I use Blue Print Cleanse, based in New York, which provides six bottled juices a day for however many days you choose. I usually just do three, that’s plenty.
Tips and Tricks From Successful and Failed Attempts
I’ve picked up a few tips during my cleansing career, here are the top ones:
- If you’re a meat-eating, heavy carbo loading, coffee-drinking fool, you better prep for a full week. Prep means cut calories, meat, alcohol and caffeine
- Drink plenty of water with your juices. You will have to pee every 30 minutes so plan for it
- Hot Tea in between juices is a life saver. Have a box of *caffeinated* green tea set aside for the cleanse days
- Hunger pains are false alarms, you’re getting the nutrition you need. Talk a walk, drink some tea, write a blog post
- Find something for yourself to do if you’re not in the office: tea with friends, clean your room, go for a long walk
- You will need to go to bed around 10pm for multiple reasons, plan for that too
What’s the Point
I look at cleansing as hitting the reset button - reboot your relationship with food. It allows you to detox for a few days, forces you to rest, stay sober and gives you perspective on the nutrients your body needs, not just wants. You will eat better after a cleanse, you will drink less coffee and less booze. Well, at least until the next party shows up on your calendar. If you’re looking for instant skinny, this is not it. You’ll gain back the water weight in a day and feel failed. Cleansing is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle choice that positively influences your choices about what you put in your body.
There’s never a good time to plan a cleanse, life continues to go on while you have to take a break but it’s worth it.
I’ve been a fan of Blue Print Cleanse for years, but there are other companies that offer different types of cleanses. Check out local SF Can Can Cleanse and Juicey Lucy’s. Do you research and do what’s best for you.
