Email Free Friday!

We’re all familiar with the idea of Dress Down Friday and this week I’d like to try out something a little different. It’s not just a day to swap your formal gear for something a little more comfortable (if appropriate), it’s a day to try not to use email!!

Have I gone completely bonkers? :) Absolutely not.  My view is that we’re mad using email quite so much as we do as organisation and this is an opportunity to give ourselves the freedom of a day without it (within reason).

This is a one-off for this week and I hope you’ll participate. It’s an idea which came out of a recent Leadership Forum for senior managers where we all agreed we’re using email when we could be getting up and speaking with colleagues, and we’re not always managing emails as effectively as we could or using this tool to its greatest advantage. Are colleagues being ‘copied in’ for the sake of it? Are you in the habit of emailing those who are just a few feet away from you? Are your subject headings always clear and concise, indicating the urgency of the email matter? Let’s try a day without it and see how we get on. 

Now I completely understand there will be exceptions to this trial exercise – this is not a ban simply a challenge which can help us to adopt more effective disciplines and consider how we can make the most of the various communication tools – including our own, human approach – available to us. If you have a real need to use email within your setting, perhaps to respond to customers within a particular time-frame, then please do so – just have a think about whether it’s really necessary or if there’s a better or more efficient way to action what you need to do first.