Communication Management
Transform your interactions to streamline collaborative workflow with Maura’s Communication Management strategies.
17 Email Management Strategies to Help Teams Thrive
Email management can be a daunting task. Lots of systems, tools, and games promise to help your team get a handle on email.
The best email management strategies involve viewing email as real work, understanding the difference between reviewing and processing email, and using a workflow management system to organize email and other work communications. Teams trained to systematically approach email increase productivity.
Recent Articles
-
10 Ways to Improve Corporate Communications with AI
In today’s fast-paced work environment, team members are often overwhelmed by a deluge of internal communication—struggling to stay afloat in a sea of emails, chat messages, and scattered data. The core issue isn’t just the volume of communication, but the fact that the information knowledge workers need to do their jobs is hard to access. Read More
-
10 Steps to Stop Work Email from Ruining Your Life
This post was updated on May 17, 2024 Tired of being buried under a mountain of work emails? Wondering if achieving inbox zero is even possible? Let’s cut through the clutter and boost your productivity. Inbox zero isn’t just a dream – it’s a game-changer. It’s about more than clearing out your inbox; it’s aboutRead More
-
It’s Time To Change The Way Your Company Communicates
The pandemic thrust office workers into back-to-back meetings, all day long—on a variety of video-conferencing platforms. Thankfully, these platforms replaced in-person conversations so that business could continue. At the time, there was no opportunity to think about how moving from in-person to remote work should change the nature of communication. However, now we know hybridRead More
-
3 Steps to Take Better Meeting Notes
This post was updated on September 26, 2023 As we leave behind notepads and switch to typing meeting notes on laptops or devices, something valuable is lost in the process: the opportunity to synthesize the information heard and remember the most important points. That’s why, as retro as it may sound, I advocate that myRead More
-
15 Tips for Running More Effective Meetings
This post was refreshed on December 11, 2022 American workers spend a LOT of time in meetings. My clients tell me they often feel frustrated and annoyed in these meetings, so they multitask during the meetings, especially if the meetings are virtual. This raises several questions about how to make meetings more effective. How canRead More
-
7 Tips to Save Time on Email and Get Back an Hour a Day!
This post was updated on September 20, 2021 I consistently find leaders and professionals across the globe making the same big mistake — they try to squeeze in handling email between their meetings and other tasks. But my clients receive an average of 100 emails per day. Each email requires an average of two minutesRead More
-
17 Email Management Strategies to Help Teams Thrive
This post was updated September 10, 2021 Email management can be a daunting task. Lots of systems, tools, and games promise to help your team get a handle on email. The best email management strategies involve viewing email as real work, understanding the difference between reviewing and processing email, and using a workflow management systemRead More
-
THIS Is How to Check Email In the Morning
This post was updated on April 29, 2021 Conventional wisdom says that checking email first thing in the morning hijacks your productivity for the day. But if you don’t check it, maybe you’ll miss an important change to your schedule or a critical piece of information. Like with most topics, the “sound bite” isn’t theRead More
-
Boost Team Productivity by Conquering Communication Debt
My clients often tell me about their rising anxiety as they attempt to zero out their email inboxes each day. Like a horror flick, they describe how they nearly conquer the enemy, when suddenly, their inboxes start to refill. Worse, they say that while they’re responding to emails, they feel dread. Why? Because they knowRead More
-
Business Email Writing Tips That Work Like Magic
This article is to share two of my favorite business email writing tips that can instantly improve your communication. They’re easy to implement and work like magic. Too often when writing business emails, we rush to get down our thoughts and send them on. While we might take care to use proper spelling and grammarRead More
-
After-Hours Email Solutions
In last week’s post, I shared some new research regarding the problems of after-hours email, and also offered some solutions. Today I wanted to share a short (5-minute) excerpt of a corporate training I recently delivered that offers additional solutions. To be clear, this is a corporate culture problem more than a personal productivity problem.Read More
-
After Hours Email is a Bigger Problem Than You Think
In my work with hundreds of companies and thousands of people in the last 16 years, I recognized an issue with regard to corporate communication; specifically after hours email. The pace and timing of email can have a damaging affect on productivity and on the culture of an organization, and what I realized is thatRead More
-
Email Overload? Here’s Why You’re Drowning – and How to Fix It
Do you dread even opening your inbox? You’re not alone. Most of my clients are perpetually drowning in email. In my training programs, I provide a 4-step strategy to overcome email overload. Here’s an overview of that process. You Aren’t Filtering Chances are, your inbox holds a wide assortment of email — from spam toRead More
-
This Popular Step to Manage Email and Texts Isn’t Enough
Your job involves an overwhelming amount of communications from others. Managing email and texts is a vexing challenge. So you take a cue from what you’ve observed others doing. You add a line to your email signature saying “I check my email infrequently, so if your request is urgent or time-sensitive, please call.” For texts,Read More
-
Effectively Manage Business Text and Instant Messages
Email isn’t the only high-tech distraction that makes it hard to focus at work. You’re probably also struggling to manage business text and instant messages, not to mention notifications from services like Skype and Slack or HipChat. A client recently wrote me to ask for tips on the best ways to manage messages from these sources.Read More
-
For Managing Email, Make This Surprising Mental Shift
Managing email requires both the right tools and the right mindset. There’s one deceptively simple idea about email that most people overlook. And because they do, they stay mired in email stress. Ready? Here it is: Email is real work that takes real time. I talked about this idea in my recent article, Help Your TeamRead More
-
Email Management Tool Review: Throttle
Update 10/28/21: I still continue to use and recommend Throttle, and haven’t had any problems with it. Update: 10/9/17: See the comments below. Users are reporting some difficulties. I occasionally have minor problems but as of now, I still recommend the product for non-critical, shopping and newsletter-type messages. [End update.] If you’re looking for anRead More
-
3 Steps to Quickly Catching Up on Email After Vacation
“Conventional Wisdom” when it comes to vacations has two big problems: People skip vacation altogether with the rationalization that it would just mean working twice as hard before and after, so it’s not worth it. (43% of Americans don’t take all of their vacation time, and Americans get less paid vacation than workers in anyRead More
-
Productivity Training 101: Overcoming Lion Syndrome
Time management and “Attention Management” efforts are easily defeated when too many tasks confront us at once. I once learned an anecdote suggesting that’s exactly why lion tamers use chairs, holding the seat of the chair or stool and pointing the legs at the lion. Do lions have some inordinate fear of chairs? Nope, that’sRead More
-
Email Etiquette: When Is CC vs BCC the Best Strategy?
Note: This post was updated on February 20, 2021 When it’s used effectively, email helps people maintain good relations with others. I think most people would agree that effective email management, and good email etiquette, suggests we avoid overwhelming people with unnecessary messages. But, through my work, I’ve seen too many companies generate an avalanche ofRead More
-
Track Conversations with “Post in this Folder”
As I explain in my training on the Empowered Productivity System, keeping details in your head causes stress — for example, that racing brain that keeps you awake at night. You might track information well when it’s an email or other electronic or physical format, but what about a conversation? Have you ever emailed yourself?Read More
As seen in
Read and follow Maura on Forbes | Read Maura’s articles in Harvard Business Review
