Free Too Busy for Your Own Good by Connie Merritt Page B

If anyone answers this e-mail, you can start over with prioritizing your time and attention appropriate to the request. Warning: before you click “send” on your bankruptcy e-mail, make sure a message from your supervisor or boss is not in this batch.
    Breaking your e-mail addiction is like breaking any other addiction: take it one day at a time. It’s difficult, I know. Responding to e-mail is a fine way to get things done when your brain’s too tired to do more demanding work, but the trick is to not let it take over your entire day.
Outgoing E-Mail
    Getting a handle on your in(sane)-box, practicing anti-instant messaging, and following some basic guidelines on your outgoing e-mail can be big steps to bringing peace to your busyness at work and home.
    Practice what you preach . When sending e-mail to others, keep it simple, essential, and valuable. If you don’t like receiving forwards (and if you want to de-busify, you probably shouldn’t), don’t forward e-mail to long lists of friends. If you must send mass e-mails, make them useful or meaningful. For example, you need to get out important information to all members of a project, need to update a group on a colleague’s illness or tragedy, your contact info has changed, or you want to provide a URL for a website with a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section.
    Subject line . These should always precisely explain the reason for the message. “Meeting on Thursday morning changed” or “We can make the appointment” are great examples. Watch out for too many “Re: Re: Re:” pileups. These can bounce your e-mail into an intended recipient’s spam folder or make you look lazy.
    Humor . Be careful with attempts at humor in your e-mails. Sarcasm works best in oral form. Writing a sarcastic message, you risk the reader taking it literallyand considering what you said to be an outright nasty remark. Everyone’s humor is specific, and you never know when you’ll touch a nerve.
    Politics . See humor.
    Cut emoticons . Those cute little symbols showing emotions don’t work. Instead, write what you mean: “I’m happy that,” “It saddens me that,” “I’m confused,” “Please help me understand,” “I like that you,” “I’m disappointed,” etc. Save the emoticons for text messaging with your kids. :-)
Telephone Tactics
    How many times have you been cut off while leaving a voice-mail message? It’s technology’s way of telling you to “get to the point.” Whether or not that seems rude, the quick cutoff ensures that callers will eventually learn to leave brief, informative messages. Don’t wait until you get cut off before learning to keep it simple!
    Tighten Your Message . Jot down a few drafts on scratch paper to keep you focused. More executives these days are only returning calls, not accepting them. Often your only hope of talking in person is to leave a compelling message. “I need to get your opinion on . . . ,” “Can you make the session?” and “Please send me the contract” are all good examples of succinct messages.
    Make a Script . Craft it, don’t wing it. If you’re going to be saying the same thing over and over on a sales call or a similar endeavor, writing a script will keep you fresh and on track. As you leave more messages, the script will naturally evolve until you have the perfect version locked down. At my therapeutic horseback riding center, we have volunteer calling parties to contact donors just to say, “thank you, weappreciate your support.” We know that we’ll mostly reach voice mail, so we craft our own script. Even if we happen to reach a real person, the script helps us stay on point—that this is purely an appreciation call, not a solicitation. In no time we’ve got a rockin’ rhythm, and less than an hour later, a handful of us can leave