Are your corporate meetings the hotbed of productivity and decision making that they should be? Probably not. Of the billions of meetings held in organizations around the world each year, too many are slow, lacking pace and without focus – and, in truth, plenty of those meetings probably don’t even need to be held in the first place. But there’s a solution, and it comes in the form of Do.com. The meeting productivity platform is growing fast and its two most recent announcements will have you sitting up, paying attention and putting the service to use.

Do.com aims to end what it terms ‘meeting hell’, and the platform is currently used by more than 5,000 organizations from top businesses like Dominos to sectors of the US government. When you add Do.com to your company’s productivity strategy, you benefit from a host of meeting-oriented features including management of agendas, notes and actions. The tool can also be used to share files for the purpose of discussion during meetings, and to display a timer to keep deliberations on track and avoid that ultimate hell of never-ending meetings.

The cloud-focused application has signaled it is on an upward trajectory, recently adding $2 million in funding. The additional capital will be used to further expand Do.com and its features, as well as the team behind it. Consequently, it appears that now is a great time to be getting onboard, with lots more to come from it. The most recent technical development to be announced is its new integration with Office 365. This will give Do.com further relevance and usability value to business owners around the world who are already taking advantage of the numerous benefits of the Microsoft cloud-based suite of productivity applications.

Do.com can already be used in conjunction with Evernote and Google Apps like Drive and Docs, but the move to integrate with Office 365 puts it in reach of an ever larger audience. Those not yet accustomed to high-tech meeting solutions may still be using pen and paper to manage their company get-togethers. But Do.com identifies its technology-based competitors as core cloud applications such as Dropbox, Trello, Evernote, Google Apps – everything from Docs to Calendar to Drive – and even good old email. Yet Do.com does something these individual apps don’t – while they all tackle one particular element of the organization and follow-up to a meeting, Do.com handles the whole lot with a single holistic, meeting-centered approach. With its latest moves, that’s what the platform hopes will be attractive to productivity-deprived business owners.

Want to find out more about Do.com and other productivity and cloud-based technologies? Get in touch today.

Meetings are meant to be hotbeds of production, where decisions get taken, people get updates and projects get moved forward. Yet all too often, they become a strain on your workforce’s productivity, hours out of the day when staff are taken away from their jobs to sit in inefficient sessions which are too long and lack pace and focus. But meeting productivity platform Do.com is trying to change that. The service just made two important announcements – here’s why you’ll want to add Do.com to your productivity suite.

Do.com aims to end what it terms ‘meeting hell’, and the platform is currently used by more than 5,000 organizations from top businesses like Dominos to sectors of the US government. When you add Do.com to your company’s productivity strategy, you benefit from a host of meeting-oriented features including management of agendas, notes and actions. The tool can also be used to share files for the purpose of discussion during meetings, and to display a timer to keep deliberations on track and avoid that ultimate hell of never-ending meetings.

The cloud-focused application has signaled it is on an upward trajectory, recently adding $2 million in funding. The additional capital will be used to further expand Do.com and its features, as well as the team behind it. Consequently, it appears that now is a great time to be getting onboard, with lots more to come from it. The most recent technical development to be announced is its new integration with Office 365. This will give Do.com further relevance and usability value to business owners around the world who are already taking advantage of the numerous benefits of the Microsoft cloud-based suite of productivity applications.

Do.com can already be used in conjunction with Evernote and Google Apps like Drive and Docs, but the move to integrate with Office 365 puts it in reach of an ever larger audience. Those not yet accustomed to high-tech meeting solutions may still be using pen and paper to manage their company get-togethers. But Do.com identifies its technology-based competitors as core cloud applications such as Dropbox, Trello, Evernote, Google Apps – everything from Docs to Calendar to Drive – and even good old email. Yet Do.com does something these individual apps don’t – while they all tackle one particular element of the organization and follow-up to a meeting, Do.com handles the whole lot with a single holistic, meeting-centered approach. With its latest moves, that’s what the platform hopes will be attractive to productivity-deprived business owners.

Want to find out more about Do.com and other productivity and cloud-based technologies? Get in touch today.

Since the launch of the original iPad Mini, it has seemed like the direction of travel has been towards smaller, more portable devices. In many ways it mirrors the trend in mobile phone development prior to the arrival of smartphones on the scene – every device was smaller than the last. But, dress it up how you like, there’s no avoiding the fact that when you decrease the size of a device, some of its features end up being sacrificed too. Here’s why you might want to dust down that old, full-sized iPad and start rediscovering it in all its glory – or better still, grab a brand new iPad Air 2.

It’s big enough to share

Whether in meetings or on the go, the full sized iPad screen is better suited to showing documents, images and web sites to others. The iPad Mini may be more easily portable, but its screen size is comparable to that of the iPhone 6, and a phone just isn’t the best platform for displaying information to a group. The screen size on models like the iPad Air makes this much easier and more effective.

It takes great photos

For some time, the iPad camera seemed inferior to that of the iPhone. But the iPad Air 2 changes all that – the 9 Megapixel camera makes it perfect for photo needs in the office. We’re thinking instant capturing of whiteboard scribbles at the end of a brainstorming session, quickly and efficiently scanning documents, and maybe just the odd workplace selfie. It’s suddenly comparable to the camera power of the iPhone and superior to that of the iPad Mini. Combine that with the bigger screen, and the business productivity advantages of the full-sized iPad Air 2 are plain to see.

It’s a productivity machine

Again it comes partly down to the full-sized screen, but a more generously proportioned iPad – whether that’s the new iPad Air 2 or an older model – is simply better for getting the job done. While the iPad Mini boasts the same resolution as the iPad Air 2, the latter’s extra screen area gives you more space to work with. The Mini offers the same amount of limited room for maneuver as the latest iPhone model, which is fine when you’re on the move and want to complete a quick task on the fly, but less so when you need to get serious work done. The larger screen allows you to drag and drop information, move things around and switch between multiple applications at ease.

Getting the highest levels of productivity out of your technology is all about selecting the gear that works best for you. Want to learn how to best deploy iPads and other Apple devices in your business? Give us a call.

If you’re on-trend and at the forefront of developments in the Apple range, you’ve long since switched your allegiance from what suddenly seems like a clunky, oversized iPad, and are using the sized-down iPad Mini. The changes almost echo the trend in pre-smartphone times, when smaller, smaller, smaller was all we were hungry for. But, however you dress it up, size reduction almost always comes at the expense of functionality. Here’s why you might want to dust down your full-sized iPad and let it enjoy a new lease of life. Better still, grab a brand new iPad Air 2.

It’s big enough to share

Whether in meetings or on the go, the full sized iPad screen is better suited to showing documents, images and web sites to others. The iPad Mini may be more easily portable, but its screen size is comparable to that of the iPhone 6, and a phone just isn’t the best platform for displaying information to a group. The screen size on models like the iPad Air makes this much easier and more effective.

It takes great photos

For some time, the iPad camera seemed inferior to that of the iPhone. But the iPad Air 2 changes all that – the 9 Megapixel camera makes it perfect for photo needs in the office. We’re thinking instant capturing of whiteboard scribbles at the end of a brainstorming session, quickly and efficiently scanning documents, and maybe just the odd workplace selfie. It’s suddenly comparable to the camera power of the iPhone and superior to that of the iPad Mini. Combine that with the bigger screen, and the business productivity advantages of the full-sized iPad Air 2 are plain to see.

It’s a productivity machine

Again it comes partly down to the full-sized screen, but a more generously proportioned iPad – whether that’s the new iPad Air 2 or an older model – is simply better for getting the job done. While the iPad Mini boasts the same resolution as the iPad Air 2, the latter’s extra screen area gives you more space to work with. The Mini offers the same amount of limited room for maneuver as the latest iPhone model, which is fine when you’re on the move and want to complete a quick task on the fly, but less so when you need to get serious work done. The larger screen allows you to drag and drop information, move things around and switch between multiple applications at ease.

Getting the highest levels of productivity out of your technology is all about selecting the gear that works best for you. Want to learn how to best deploy iPads and other Apple devices in your business? Give us a call.

For a long time in the mobile world, it seemed like the only way was smaller. Phones became more miniscule with each and every version released – yet the truth is that reduced size comes at the cost of functionality. Then along came the smartphone, which increased size back to sensible levels but brought with it swathes of apps and other new uses – suddenly a phone was more than just a phone. Now we’re in the age of the tablet and, while things may seem to have been once again erring towards the miniature of late, here’s why you might want to stick with your full-sized iPad for the time being. Better still, opt for a new iPad Air 2.

It’s big enough to share

Whether in meetings or on the go, the full sized iPad screen is better suited to showing documents, images and web sites to others. The iPad Mini may be more easily portable, but its screen size is comparable to that of the iPhone 6, and a phone just isn’t the best platform for displaying information to a group. The screen size on models like the iPad Air makes this much easier and more effective.

It takes great photos

For some time, the iPad camera seemed inferior to that of the iPhone. But the iPad Air 2 changes all that – the 9 Megapixel camera makes it perfect for photo needs in the office. We’re thinking instant capturing of whiteboard scribbles at the end of a brainstorming session, quickly and efficiently scanning documents, and maybe just the odd workplace selfie. It’s suddenly comparable to the camera power of the iPhone and superior to that of the iPad Mini. Combine that with the bigger screen, and the business productivity advantages of the full-sized iPad Air 2 are plain to see.

It’s a productivity machine

Again it comes partly down to the full-sized screen, but a more generously proportioned iPad – whether that’s the new iPad Air 2 or an older model – is simply better for getting the job done. While the iPad Mini boasts the same resolution as the iPad Air 2, the latter’s extra screen area gives you more space to work with. The Mini offers the same amount of limited room for maneuver as the latest iPhone model, which is fine when you’re on the move and want to complete a quick task on the fly, but less so when you need to get serious work done. The larger screen allows you to drag and drop information, move things around and switch between multiple applications at ease.

Getting the highest levels of productivity out of your technology is all about selecting the gear that works best for you. Want to learn how to best deploy iPads and other Apple devices in your business? Give us a call.

Office Vibe – 100% Anonymous? Hardly not. The company I work at has been using this poorly put together piece of software. I accidentally signed my own tenancy up and saw what a manager would see. This software to me is annoying and could be done internally. Why would we pay someone to tell us certain trends when Google already does it for us. OfficeVibe.com is a joke of a product. If anyone is thinking of paying them to do testing on your company – think again, the result from what is going to spawn from this 100% anonymous tag they post in the footer of the email survey’s they put out is 100% a lie.

I tried to call OfficeVibe and have my account removed but seeing that I am not the manager they will not delete my data. I replied back and said I would not be participating as OfficeVibe lies.

In my opinion this is a huge breach of my privacy and security.

Please share my article if your company uses OfficeVibe.

It’s been a long time coming, but Microsoft has finally unveiled its latest version of the Office for Mac suite of productivity applications. The first refresh that the package has seen since 2011 takes it closer to delivering the experience enjoyed by users of its Windows sibling, and it brings Office 365 and the power of cloud computing to the masses. Best of all, the whole thing is free of charge for a limited period - here are some of the features to look out for in Office for Mac 2016.

Cloud power

Office for Mac 2016 takes the power of the cloud and puts it to full use, bringing the advantages of its cloud-oriented Office 365 applications to its flagship package. As a result, you can now access your Office documents whenever and wherever, and no matter which device you are using. Aside from Office 365, the new software is also integrated with OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint.

It’s now possible to jointly author Word and PowerPoint documents with colleagues, and to make challenges simultaneously. Much like Google Docs, you can run a chat conversation alongside the document, in order to discuss the changes you are each making. Word and PowerPoint automatically flag up updates to the document that you might not have spotted already. These features are already available to Windows-based users of Office.

Sharing documents also becomes simpler, with a dedicated sharing button in the applications’ top right corner that allows you to invite colleagues to collaborate on the document you’re working on. It’s possible to share a document either as an attachment or as a link, and of course to control access rights for each person to whom you give access. You can open others’ Office documents right from your email account and get straight to editing.

Ribbon refresh

Until now, there have been differences in the options available on the ‘ribbon’ of icons that appear beneath the File, Edit and other menus at the top of the screen. You might see one thing on your Mac but another on your PC, and another still on your tablet. With Office for Mac 2016, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to fix those inconsistencies, so you’ll now find the options you need in the same places across all the platforms you use. A new task pane is also intended to help simplify graphics editing.

Email grouping

The updates to Outlook, and OneNote too, were actually released in 2014 and so are technically not new with this release. But one such useful update that is carried through to Office for Mac 2016 is the organization of Outlook emails by conversation, as is the case with Gmail. Emails can be sorted using a variety of other criteria, too.

Presentation aids

Office for Mac 2016 makes life a little easier for those presenting using PowerPoint slides. While your audience is shown the final product on your big screen, you can benefit from having ‘presenter view’ open on your monitor. This dedicated view gives you access to all of your presentation’s slides, any associated notes and also a timer to help you keep pace.

The entire suite of Office for Mac 2016 applications - including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook - is available for free upgrade during Microsoft’s preview period, which runs until later this year. Once that comes to an end, you’ll need an Office 365 subscription or perpetual licence in order to keep making the most of the package’s features.

To find out more about boosting your company’s productivity with Microsoft Office applications, give us a call today.

With the release of Office for Mac 2016, Microsoft brings a long overdue refresh to its flagship suite of productivity applications for Mac users. As well as design changes that deliver similarities to the Windows versions of the applications, the latest upgrade – currently free of charge while it remains in preview stage, prior to full release later this year – harnesses the power of cloud computing to deliver Office 365 collaboration features. Thinking of upgrading? Here’s what to look out for in the new release.

Cloud power

Office for Mac 2016 takes the power of the cloud and puts it to full use, bringing the advantages of its cloud-oriented Office 365 applications to its flagship package. As a result, you can now access your Office documents whenever and wherever, and no matter which device you are using. Aside from Office 365, the new software is also integrated with OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint.

It’s now possible to jointly author Word and PowerPoint documents with colleagues, and to make challenges simultaneously. Much like Google Docs, you can run a chat conversation alongside the document, in order to discuss the changes you are each making. Word and PowerPoint automatically flag up updates to the document that you might not have spotted already. These features are already available to Windows-based users of Office.

Sharing documents also becomes simpler, with a dedicated sharing button in the applications’ top right corner that allows you to invite colleagues to collaborate on the document you’re working on. It’s possible to share a document either as an attachment or as a link, and of course to control access rights for each person to whom you give access. You can open others’ Office documents right from your email account and get straight to editing.

Ribbon refresh

Until now, there have been differences in the options available on the ‘ribbon’ of icons that appear beneath the File, Edit and other menus at the top of the screen. You might see one thing on your Mac but another on your PC, and another still on your tablet. With Office for Mac 2016, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to fix those inconsistencies, so you’ll now find the options you need in the same places across all the platforms you use. A new task pane is also intended to help simplify graphics editing.

Email grouping

The updates to Outlook, and OneNote too, were actually released in 2014 and so are technically not new with this release. But one such useful update that is carried through to Office for Mac 2016 is the organization of Outlook emails by conversation, as is the case with Gmail. Emails can be sorted using a variety of other criteria, too.

Presentation aids

Office for Mac 2016 makes life a little easier for those presenting using PowerPoint slides. While your audience is shown the final product on your big screen, you can benefit from having ‘presenter view’ open on your monitor. This dedicated view gives you access to all of your presentation’s slides, any associated notes and also a timer to help you keep pace.

The entire suite of Office for Mac 2016 applications – including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook – is available for free upgrade during Microsoft’s preview period, which runs until later this year. Once that comes to an end, you’ll need an Office 365 subscription or perpetual licence in order to keep making the most of the package’s features.

To find out more about boosting your company’s productivity with Microsoft Office applications, give us a call today.

Mac users have a reason to celebrate – after a long wait since its last update in 2011, the Microsoft Office for Mac suite of productivity applications has been given a makeover. The latest look brings on board the power of the cloud to take Office to new levels for Apple fans, including a move to deliver an experience that’s closer to that of the Windows version of the package. Better still, you can upgrade for free while it’s still in preview stage – here are some of the killer features of Office for Mac 2016.

Cloud power

Office for Mac 2016 takes the power of the cloud and puts it to full use, bringing the advantages of its cloud-oriented Office 365 applications to its flagship package. As a result, you can now access your Office documents whenever and wherever, and no matter which device you are using. Aside from Office 365, the new software is also integrated with OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint.

It’s now possible to jointly author Word and PowerPoint documents with colleagues, and to make challenges simultaneously. Much like Google Docs, you can run a chat conversation alongside the document, in order to discuss the changes you are each making. Word and PowerPoint automatically flag up updates to the document that you might not have spotted already. These features are already available to Windows-based users of Office.

Sharing documents also becomes simpler, with a dedicated sharing button in the applications’ top right corner that allows you to invite colleagues to collaborate on the document you’re working on. It’s possible to share a document either as an attachment or as a link, and of course to control access rights for each person to whom you give access. You can open others’ Office documents right from your email account and get straight to editing.

Ribbon refresh

Until now, there have been differences in the options available on the ‘ribbon’ of icons that appear beneath the File, Edit and other menus at the top of the screen. You might see one thing on your Mac but another on your PC, and another still on your tablet. With Office for Mac 2016, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to fix those inconsistencies, so you’ll now find the options you need in the same places across all the platforms you use. A new task pane is also intended to help simplify graphics editing.

Email grouping

The updates to Outlook, and OneNote too, were actually released in 2014 and so are technically not new with this release. But one such useful update that is carried through to Office for Mac 2016 is the organization of Outlook emails by conversation, as is the case with Gmail. Emails can be sorted using a variety of other criteria, too.

Presentation aids

Office for Mac 2016 makes life a little easier for those presenting using PowerPoint slides. While your audience is shown the final product on your big screen, you can benefit from having ‘presenter view’ open on your monitor. This dedicated view gives you access to all of your presentation’s slides, any associated notes and also a timer to help you keep pace.

The entire suite of Office for Mac 2016 applications – including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook – is available for free upgrade during Microsoft’s preview period, which runs until later this year. Once that comes to an end, you’ll need an Office 365 subscription or perpetual licence in order to keep making the most of the package’s features.

To find out more about boosting your company’s productivity with Microsoft Office applications, give us a call today.

It’s been a long time coming, but Microsoft has finally unveiled its latest version of the Office for Mac suite of productivity applications. The first refresh that the package has seen since 2011 takes it closer to delivering the experience enjoyed by users of its Windows sibling, and it brings Office 365 and the power of cloud computing to the masses. Best of all, the whole thing is free of charge for a limited period – here are some of the features to look out for in Office for Mac 2016.

Cloud power

Office for Mac 2016 takes the power of the cloud and puts it to full use, bringing the advantages of its cloud-oriented Office 365 applications to its flagship package. As a result, you can now access your Office documents whenever and wherever, and no matter which device you are using. Aside from Office 365, the new software is also integrated with OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint.

It’s now possible to jointly author Word and PowerPoint documents with colleagues, and to make challenges simultaneously. Much like Google Docs, you can run a chat conversation alongside the document, in order to discuss the changes you are each making. Word and PowerPoint automatically flag up updates to the document that you might not have spotted already. These features are already available to Windows-based users of Office.

Sharing documents also becomes simpler, with a dedicated sharing button in the applications’ top right corner that allows you to invite colleagues to collaborate on the document you’re working on. It’s possible to share a document either as an attachment or as a link, and of course to control access rights for each person to whom you give access. You can open others’ Office documents right from your email account and get straight to editing.

Ribbon refresh

Until now, there have been differences in the options available on the ‘ribbon’ of icons that appear beneath the File, Edit and other menus at the top of the screen. You might see one thing on your Mac but another on your PC, and another still on your tablet. With Office for Mac 2016, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to fix those inconsistencies, so you’ll now find the options you need in the same places across all the platforms you use. A new task pane is also intended to help simplify graphics editing.

Email grouping

The updates to Outlook, and OneNote too, were actually released in 2014 and so are technically not new with this release. But one such useful update that is carried through to Office for Mac 2016 is the organization of Outlook emails by conversation, as is the case with Gmail. Emails can be sorted using a variety of other criteria, too.

Presentation aids

Office for Mac 2016 makes life a little easier for those presenting using PowerPoint slides. While your audience is shown the final product on your big screen, you can benefit from having ‘presenter view’ open on your monitor. This dedicated view gives you access to all of your presentation’s slides, any associated notes and also a timer to help you keep pace.

The entire suite of Office for Mac 2016 applications – including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook – is available for free upgrade during Microsoft’s preview period, which runs until later this year. Once that comes to an end, you’ll need an Office 365 subscription or perpetual licence in order to keep making the most of the package’s features.

To find out more about boosting your company’s productivity with Microsoft Office applications, give us a call today.

How much time in your organization is spent reading, sending and replying to emails? Chances are, the answer is “too much”. It’s a modern day epidemic - we all spend far too much time in our inboxes, and we rely on email too much to keep us in check and on task. But even before you get to the body of the email itself, by focusing on writing concise and consistently structured email subject lines, you can make life easier and more productive for both you and your recipient. Foster a culture of email subject discipline in your company and you’ll see the results in improved productivity and efficiency - here are three tips to get you started.

Specific subjects spell success

If someone sends you an email that’s headed simply with the word “report”, how are you meant to know what they want from you? Do they need you to write a new report, proofread one they’ve already written, or print a report for them? You inevitably start reading the email without the first idea of what it is you’re being asked to do.

In an ideal situation, when you receive a new email you want to know in an instant - just from the subject line - what the message is about. And that is something you should make possible for recipients of your own emails too. So structure your subject line using keywords - for instance, change that “Report” to “Sales Report for February 2015”. Better still, give your colleague all they need to know at a glance - “Draft Sales Report for February 2015 by Monday, 1pm” - so that the body of the message is preserved for you to get down to details as succinctly as possible.

Use prefixes and suffixes

Another simple way to help your recipient understand at a glance what you need from them - and to make it easier for them to categorize their incoming emails, too - is to specify right in the subject line what type of message it is that you are sending them. Emails come in all shapes and sizes, and by placing a prefix before or a suffix after your main subject line, you’ll get quicker results.

For instance, if your email needs a definitive response from the recipient, start it with “ACTION:” followed by the subject. An example would be “ACTION: Draft Sales Report for February 2015 by Monday, 1pm”. If, on the other hand, you are simply dropping your colleagues a quick notification that the printer is out of order, you can use one or both of “FYI” (for your information) and “NRN” (no reply needed). For example: “FYI: Printer out of order until further notice” or “NRN: Printer out of order until further notice.”

You can take this one stop further. If you can get your entire message across in the subject line alone, then that’s exactly what you should aim to do. That way, your colleague can read the subject line, add the task to their to-do list and delete it straight out of their inbox. To quickly signal that there’s nothing in the email body, you can suffix your subject line with “EOM” (end of message) - for example, “FYI: Printer out of order until further notice. EOM”.

Keep it consistent

These tricks will only help you beat a never-ending inbox if they’re adopted and applied consistently across your organization. Make them a part of your company’s basic IT training, and encourage your staff to use them in their own work and to pull up others who fall back into bad habits. They may be skeptical at first, but they’ll soon jump on the bandwagon once they start to realize how much less time they spend managing their email account!

Think too about introducing standardized formats for subjects of emails you and your teams send on a recurring basis. For example, if you regularly send reports around for review, prefix your subject line with “Report for Review:”, followed by the topic of the report. Or if your employees send you a weekly update on their workstreams, have them title it “Weekly Update:” followed by the date. That way, you can set up filters in your inbox and have those emails smartly stored in one place, ready for you to look through when the time is right, rather than clogging up your inbox and making it look like you have more urgent tasks to complete than you actually do.

Want to learn how to use email systems efficiently to boost your firm’s productivity? Chat to us today about the innovative email solutions we can provide.

Email is not your job. Repeat: email is not your job. Too many of us spend our days slaving over our inboxes, while our real jobs get neglected and we sacrifice the opportunity to be truly productive. But there is a solution, and it starts not with the message itself but with the subject line. By keeping your email subject lines short, focused and consistently structured, both you and your recipient can identify which emails warrant which action. And that means you both spend less time battling with your inbox and free up more precious time to get on with what you’re really paid to do. Embrace a culture of email efficiency in your workplace with these three tips for more productive email subject lines.

Specific subjects spell success

If someone sends you an email that’s headed simply with the word “report”, how are you meant to know what they want from you? Do they need you to write a new report, proofread one they’ve already written, or print a report for them? You inevitably start reading the email without the first idea of what it is you’re being asked to do.

In an ideal situation, when you receive a new email you want to know in an instant – just from the subject line – what the message is about. And that is something you should make possible for recipients of your own emails too. So structure your subject line using keywords – for instance, change that “Report” to “Sales Report for February 2015”. Better still, give your colleague all they need to know at a glance – “Draft Sales Report for February 2015 by Monday, 1pm” – so that the body of the message is preserved for you to get down to details as succinctly as possible.

Use prefixes and suffixes

Another simple way to help your recipient understand at a glance what you need from them – and to make it easier for them to categorize their incoming emails, too – is to specify right in the subject line what type of message it is that you are sending them. Emails come in all shapes and sizes, and by placing a prefix before or a suffix after your main subject line, you’ll get quicker results.

For instance, if your email needs a definitive response from the recipient, start it with “ACTION:” followed by the subject. An example would be “ACTION: Draft Sales Report for February 2015 by Monday, 1pm”. If, on the other hand, you are simply dropping your colleagues a quick notification that the printer is out of order, you can use one or both of “FYI” (for your information) and “NRN” (no reply needed). For example: “FYI: Printer out of order until further notice” or “NRN: Printer out of order until further notice.”

You can take this one stop further. If you can get your entire message across in the subject line alone, then that’s exactly what you should aim to do. That way, your colleague can read the subject line, add the task to their to-do list and delete it straight out of their inbox. To quickly signal that there’s nothing in the email body, you can suffix your subject line with “EOM” (end of message) – for example, “FYI: Printer out of order until further notice. EOM”.

Keep it consistent

These tricks will only help you beat a never-ending inbox if they’re adopted and applied consistently across your organization. Make them a part of your company’s basic IT training, and encourage your staff to use them in their own work and to pull up others who fall back into bad habits. They may be skeptical at first, but they’ll soon jump on the bandwagon once they start to realize how much less time they spend managing their email account!

Think too about introducing standardized formats for subjects of emails you and your teams send on a recurring basis. For example, if you regularly send reports around for review, prefix your subject line with “Report for Review:”, followed by the topic of the report. Or if your employees send you a weekly update on their workstreams, have them title it “Weekly Update:” followed by the date. That way, you can set up filters in your inbox and have those emails smartly stored in one place, ready for you to look through when the time is right, rather than clogging up your inbox and making it look like you have more urgent tasks to complete than you actually do.

Want to learn how to use email systems efficiently to boost your firm’s productivity? Chat to us today about the innovative email solutions we can provide.