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Drowning in Email

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Om Malik notes the results of a recent survey of our email habits, and it ain't pretty. * 8% of us cop to checking email during business meetings. * 41% of us check email in the middle of the night.... [Read More]

Tracked on May 26, 2005 4:23:46 PM

Posted April 19, 2005 in Venture Capital and Technology

Comments

A one-line (or even one-word) response can be better than nothing. I send a lot of "thanks", or "interesting, let's talk" emails to things that would otherwise get no response at all.

But maybe the most powerful one is "watch the blog". That way you can respond to multiple messages about the same subject with a single blog post.

Posted by: Charlie Wood | Apr 19, 2005 5:55:57 AM

For grins, I wrote up an email generator template for you.

http://www.undefined.com/ia/archives/2005/04/a_vc_email_gene_1.html

And, to pile on to what Charlie said, most of the time, those of us who send email aren't necessarily looking for a thoughtful reply; a simple "Thanks" is sufficient. I recognize that you're a busy person.

Posted by: John Brothers | Apr 19, 2005 6:47:08 AM

Are they all personal? If not, maybe you should redirect some to your analyst. :)

Posted by: Charlie O'Donnell | Apr 19, 2005 7:18:51 AM

Also do you filter your email by TO vs CC, key people you work with, family, etc?

How many of these emails could be forwarded to someone else to reply ie delegated?

Posted by: CD | Apr 19, 2005 8:07:53 AM

Hitting Gawker probably won't help:

http://www.gawker.com/news/internet/index.php#nyc-vcs-get-their-mojo-back-040203

Posted by: Mark | Apr 19, 2005 9:39:55 AM

A few suggestions (I get about 500 emails a day, though a large portion of that is spam and much of the rest is mailing lists not personal emails)

1. If you do not already, use automatic rules to at a minimum pull out mailing lists and other subscriptions into separate folders (I use one folder for each mailing list and some catchall folders like "vendors" to stick general requested but not personal commercial emails, another for event notices/communications etc)

This should help keep your actual "inbox" to just personal emails and non-yet-auto-sorted mass emails.

(and at least much of the time as you get a new form of mass email, assuming it is useful, you should take a few seconds and set up the rule right then)

2. One of the most efficient email people I know uses his own software (Activewords - http://www.activewords.com) to give him a set of standard text he can auto-insert with a few simple keystrokes. He uses this for commonly needed replies (such as in his cas a request for a trial license or his fulfilling an offer for a free full license etc).

By using Activewords, or a bit less efficiently by setting up some templates and/or a library to cut and paste from of your commonly needed replies you can make at least faster the process of replying to many emails.

I use something similar as I manage the email communications re MeshForum (http://www.meshforum.org), the process of organizing a conference means I am sending the same info to many people, by using rapid text substitution I ensure consistency and save lots of time typing.

3. Another trick a sales person I know and highly respects uses is he blocks of time OFFLINE (very critical) during which he both composes emails to people and works his way through his inbox replying to people. By being offline while he is doing this, he avoids new incomming distractions, and finds he can efficiently and quickly catch up. I do something similar at least once a week (and regret it when I don't) during which I go through my inbox, file mail I have read and dealt with, and reply to mail which requires a response.

4. Having a series of checks & balances as well as fairly consistent ways of moving mail out of your inbox as you deal with it is very, very helpful. I try to file messages immediately after reading them (assuming I have dealt with them, or I flag them if I have to wait before replying). I have project folders as well as catchall folders for this purpose.

I also make use of Outlook XP's feature of saved searches to help me monitor for and catch important mail that gets autofiled outside of my inbox, or which gets backed up inside of my inbox (in my case one such search looks for any email with "meshforum" in it that is not sorted into my MeshForum folder already)

5. Some of the people I know who get even more email than me also use multiple email addresses to help manage their email, it all probably shows up into the same tool, but they have "public" and "private" addresses, the private addresses are never published on the web and only given out to family and friends - this can be a simple yet highly efficient way to auto-flag and deal with email from those who are closest to you.

Hope this helps!

Shannon

Posted by: Shannon Clark | Apr 19, 2005 9:42:59 AM

As someone who has emailed you and been pleasantly surprised to get a reply, even much later, I'll actually take a contrarian view.

Someone taking the action of sending you an email does not create a responsibility for you to respond. (Obviously there are exceptions, if you are in a customer service field for instance.)

When I send you my idea for the next gazillion dollar whozits, and I've never met you before, I'm spamming you. It may be a one-person distribution, but you're no more obligated to reply than if I was offering a share in a Nigerian prince's fortune or a body-part alteration. Do you return calls to telemarketers who leave voicemails?

If you choose to respond, you're a prince of a guy. But (at least I've found) that when you let go of the guilt about not responding to every email, you find yourself with lots more time.

It amazes me how many people are able to keep tight control of their calendars and phones, yet allow themselves to become enslaved to email.

My one caveat to the above is that if you get enough of a volume of email that you can't always reply, perhaps put a note in your blog intro saying the same so expectations are realistic.

That, and keep responding to anything I send you :)

Posted by: Mike Orren | Apr 19, 2005 9:55:58 AM

After you filter out all the e-mail, I assume that you quickly read through all of them.

You could do what magazines are doing with reader letters--pick the representative/interesting ones and answer publicly.

To go a step further, answer them all by having some sort of a FAQ/Bulleting board, (call it something clever like "Answerbox" or "Answerbot" or "Answerblog") where you'd post answers to many at once--I'm sure that bunch of e-mails can be put into "buckets" that you can answer to with one general message.

On top of that, by doing it, you'll be creating yet another section of your site that will draw the readers in, and make them come back...

Try it and see what happens, after all, the only way to figure out whether something is working or not is by--working it... :)
Zee

Posted by: Zee | Apr 19, 2005 10:01:25 AM

Fred, simple solution. Sleep less, compute more. Works for me. Sleep is highly overrated -- good to see you up at 5 a.m. by the way. Let's try getting up 15 minutes earlier tomorrow morning though and late nights are good too. Nothing like burning the candle at both ends.

Keep up the good work!

Posted by: Thomas Hawk | Apr 19, 2005 10:56:32 AM

Rules and sorting are a fine start. But. However. You've got a computing machine with more raw power than the one that flew Apollo to the moon. It shouldn't be this difficult to manage communication.

An intelligent mail program would read the traffic, prepare replies and submit them for your signature. Or prepare action items for same.

I am not thinking of canned replies but something that should be in the realm of doable with software; the software takes actions that you would take, prepares the reply or action. Think of it as 'intelligent admin assistant in-a-box'.

I suspect we won't see this from Microsoft - most people don't need admin-in-a-box. We won't see this from Open Source - it doesn't scratch an itch that the people who could implement it need scratched.

It does sound like a venture that needs a few _good_ coders and small pile of cash - or I might be all wet. Thoughts?

Posted by: Brian | Apr 19, 2005 11:59:40 AM

I feel for you: isn't it tough being so popular?

Joking aside, I believe that a good solution must (1) let you receive high priority messages in real time and (2) have some prompt human judgment about low priority messages.

Perhaps you need a new email address for your high priority communications (family, active deals, etc.). Just as you triage your phonecalls, you can triage you low priority email communications. You can have your assistant scan your low priority emails and give polite replies, immediate replies that let people know that you only read your emails twice a week (and perhaps any other parts of your email policy). If your assistant is good, you might have s/he use a cheat sheet for obvious requests (funding/jobs/etc) that allow you to reply, but do not obligate you to follow up. If it's really important, just like a phonecall, s/he can forward it to your attention.

Posted by: Michael Weiksner | Apr 19, 2005 1:08:20 PM

I'm in the 'unsolicited emails do not _have_ to be responded to' Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.

There's no harm in setting an autoresponder, i.e. letting people know their email got to the destination. After that it depends on the merits of the email.

As far as funding requests and things like that, I'd assume you file those where they belong - anyone who can find your email and not manage to find a more direct channel isn't going to get much traction {the magic duck comes down and gives me $50} when they go out on cold calls.

There's only so much time - if the response is a timewaster, from my selfish perspective, do me a favor - put the time into your blog.

As far as checks and balances, mine is a finger poised over the delete button :-) If there isn't a good reason for me to keep it, away it goes......

Posted by: Mark Mullin | Apr 19, 2005 2:12:36 PM

I'll answer them for you......

Posted by: jackson | Apr 19, 2005 2:30:44 PM

You know what I need - an email Snooze button. You hit it and the instant email comes back in ___ hours or days or whatever setting. When it comes back it tells me how many time I've sent it away, whether other email from that sender is in the queue, etc.
Do you know, is this out there? Probably a pretty easy script to write, if one could find the time...
Best,
Kevin

Posted by: Kevin | Apr 19, 2005 4:32:48 PM

Inn the mid to late 90s I worked with a publishing company and our editors had the same problem, and a boss that wanted them to reply to everything. To be honest I have yet to come across a great solution, but there is an old-school, low-tech way to at least address it, and this is what we did for our editors.

1. Write a very nice autoresponder that says something like:

"Thanks for your message. Unfortunately I get a ton of email every day and I just can't respond to it all. If you don't hear back from me, please understand that it isn't personal.

Unfortunately if I read every email I receive I would have no time to do my real work. In short order I would be out of business and unable to afford a computer, which would mean I couldn't ready any email.

If you don't get a reply in the next day or so, and you really think it vitally important that I read your message then please feel free to mail it to me using Ye Olde Post Office (snail mail) and I can almost guarantee that your message will be read. My address is:

Thanks again for contacting me and hopefully we will be able to connect some time in the near future."

2. Prioritize your email:

a. Family
b. Business associates you like/value
c. Business associates you value, but maybe don't like
d. VIPs you feel it would be good to get back to ASAP
e. Rest of the world

3. Delete every message you don't reply to right away.

The auto-reply lets people know you're trying and that if you don't reply that it isn't personal, it's just reality.

By asking someone to mail you something you are causing the sender to think about how important the message really is. If it isn't important enough to spend 50 cents to a couple of bucks (keeping the international crowd in mind) and waiting a day or two for delivery, then maybe it isn't that important after all. You've also given them an alternative and tacitly sent a message that you aren't ignoring them, you really are just a very busy person.

Posted by: Jon Lowder | Apr 19, 2005 4:34:49 PM

ohh i didnt mean nothing by it Fred, I was just saying. No biggie!

Posted by: simondodson.com | Apr 19, 2005 6:46:55 PM

a follow up - I have to disagree with the advice "delete everything you don't reply to".

For me my email (and archives) serves a critical and vital role of computer assisted, searchable memory. If I delete messages I remove them from this memory.

- I do delete messages, but generally only duplicates, spam, or impersonal commercial and time sensitive (calender listings).

I can't count how many times (it happens a lot) that the ability to rapidly search and note exactly what the full record of interactions with someone or a company were has helped me.

Very much related to this I am a power user of Lookout (free enhanced search tool which was purchased by Microsoft and still available for free download) While it does mean some lag when it does the daily indexing, the payoff of being able to rapidly and accurately search my entire mail archive - across multiple files, including attachments, and including select non-mail files, is very, very helpful - added on to which is a UI which allows for sorting and reorganizing the search results efficiently.

In combination this helps me a great deal. But only when I save the messages, when I delete something, perhaps because I don't plan on replying/responding invariabely a few weeks (even days0 later something comes up that changes my mind. A new project, a new client, something I read/see/encounter etc.

I would, however continue to suggest that you move such mail out of your immediate inbox - either into a separate mail folder, or possibly even into a separate mail archive (either by hand or perhaps via using Outlook's auto-archiving features with some customizations.

Shannon

Posted by: Shannon Clark | Apr 19, 2005 7:27:22 PM

You're now a quasi public figure--a minor blog celebrity and major VC celebrity. A combination of these suggestions would likely create a comfortable solution for you:

--rules, rules rules.

--use separate email addresses for family, work, blog, and sycophants like me.

--cut down on the subscriptions! If you want a site's content, visit it. Use email fo communication and the web for research/reading/browsing. By mixing the two you're diluting the efficacy of both.

--blog less. You post a lot, and the posts are good. I visit once a week or so and it's a lot to read. All good, but a lot to read, especially because you link to so many damn good sites and blogs. You're very generous with your posts.

Posted by: Charlie Crystle | Apr 20, 2005 8:33:49 AM

Some great tips here and good group therapy. One idea no one has offered: Send fewer emails. Maybe it'll catch on.

Of course, I don't honor that one myself. And while one-word replies often suffice, don't you hate it when someone replies "Yes" (or "No" or "...") to a week-old email that is not in the body of the reply? Yes, what, exactly?

Posted by: BZ | Apr 20, 2005 9:19:32 AM

Thinking out of the box here Fred, how about recording a podcast for answering most of your daily request. Obviously it doesn't apply for very personal or biz deals answers, and that also could become a good way for us to learn more about the different issues you talk about. You can record it in your car, or while waiting for your coffee, and then give it to your assistant for her to place it in your blog.

Maybe it's a crazy idea, maybe it helps.

Posted by: Gonzalo | Apr 20, 2005 10:38:51 AM

I quickly skimmed all the comments here; __none__ of them actually had a practical and realistic solution. That's sad, really. But I have one; in fact, I've had it for years, even communicated it to several email client developers - but to no avail.

The solution is a simple flag you set when you send an email. It's called No Reply Necessary or "NRN" for short. Set the flag, send the email, and the recipient knows that you don't expect a reply. As simple as that.

Helmar, your trusted inventor of the "open page in background" (Opera), "carry settings over to child pages" (Opera), "show all links in page" (Opera), and the most useful one: "reply mode in IM" (Sonork).

Posted by: Helmar | Apr 20, 2005 2:16:11 PM

Addendum: the "flag", like many others, would sit in the (X-)header of the email. Those email clients that under this flag can deal with it accordingly. The rest just ignores it.

Posted by: Helmar | Apr 20, 2005 2:18:16 PM

Just a thought but you seem to be a very busy guy with the VC work, regular editorial commentary and a detailed real-time blog. Do you really have enough bandwidth to handle all this work plus respond to the email your work creates?

Posted by: Rick | Apr 20, 2005 5:20:25 PM

Fred,

You are kind enough to give the world a glimpse into the life of a VC. Your time is valuable and between responding to job and funding requests to budget in the time you need to thoroughly respond to all of those personal inquiries would be bad business.

I guess the best solution is the one used for the typical funding request, a simple auto-responder with a comment on the overwhelming emails you receive and if you have something you would like to follow up with then that is up to your discretion.

Posted by: Howard | Apr 21, 2005 3:36:22 AM

Wow, lots of great advice here. I'm paying attention to that, too!

As a fellow email sufferer, this article by Jason Clarke was my catalyst:

http://www.jasonclarke.net/archives/2005/02/09/if-your-inbox-has-more-than-a-screenful-of-messages-in-it-youre-rude/

I still tend to do a lot of yak shaving first, though.

Posted by: Neville Hobson | Apr 23, 2005 10:37:09 AM

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