Earlier this spring, we shared some advice for handling intraoffice email. That led to several people suggesting even more advice. Which leads to this list of suggestions, mostly from Econsultancy, with a couple thrown in from a guy down the hall. If you have more suggestions, share them with us via—what else?—email at [email protected].


1 | Limit an email to four sentences

“Q: Why is this email four sentences or less? A: http://four.sentenc.es

If you follow the link you’ll see the remarkably simple premise – limiting the length of email responses. Short emails can be composed and the signature explains that far from being curt, the intention is to increase the efficiency of communication.


2 | Set up an office blog

Do big corporations still use the term “intranet”? Automattic, the folks behind WordPress use their P2 theme (try it here) that allows different teams to maintain their own pages, where people can comment and search for information. (See our previous article about Automattic’s “no office” workforce.)

3 | Don’t check email in the morning

When you start your daily work, use the first hour of the day to do some actual work, rather than wading through emails. Later in the day, when correspondence starts to pour in, you can deal with emails knowing you have already gotten some work under your belt.

4 | Use Slack (etc.)

Slack encourages employees to use a system of direct messaging, video and audio chat all organized into projects. It works, as long as everyone on a team uses it.

5 | Use a project management platform like Basecamp

Basecamp, the popular project management platform that has been around since 1999, provides the direct messaging organizational magic of a platform like Slack with a more robust project management approach.

6 | Schedule standup meetings

More regular face-to-face meetings mean less email, but they must be quick and efficient.

istock, Basecamp.com, four.sentenc.es

VIA | Econsultancy.com

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