Traffic jam

For the past seven years, I have been up at 6am each weekday morning, at my desk by 7:20am and rarely getting home before 7pm – even on a quiet day. Busy days especially those involving networking obligations often see me not home until after midnight. Ironically, a breakfast seminar is eagerly anticipated as the opportunity for a lie-in.

It’s made me think about creating a better work-life balance. The broadsheets have been full of stories about City mums being frazzled and City dads forming self-help groups. Is this really how we should arrange our lives?

Probably the biggest time waster and stress inducer in my working day is email. It is not just the sheer volume of unsolicited emails or being copied in about matters with which I am only tangentially involved (although still required to read the 5GB attachment),
it is also because I am effectively on
call 18 hours a day. There is always someone somewhere in the world in a last-minute rush who needs clarification or a particular document.

Forbes recently suggested we spend 13 hours a week reading and processing emails. It is not surprising that we are working longer and longer hours. So, how can you reduce your email traffic?

First, all staff should be banned from sending non-work related emails internally. If someone wants to publicise a charity jumble sale, this can be done via the intranet and not by disturbing every member of staff. Maybe a £1 fine to go to charity for each ‘transgression’ may focus people’s minds.

Several studies have shown that if you want to reduce the number of emails received, you should send fewer yourself. This is particularly so for senior staff, who often set an example for the firm.

Consideration should be given to whether the email is necessary. Do you really need to copy in all those people? And is email the most appropriate form of communication?

Talking to someone or leaving a voicemail message should be encouraged. Most emails are not necessary and are too easy to send. An email can be sent to everyone in the firm at the touch of a button. Some people use late-evening emails with large distribution lists as a way to show everyone how hard they are working. So if you would not speak to someone about an issue, do not email them either.

One of my pet hates is huge emails with long paragraphs. My heart sinks when I see a screen full of words, with no breaks, headings or summaries. Try to be precise and succinct if you want to catch people’s attention, and hopefully they will do the same. I always try to keep memos to one side of A4 and follow the same principle for emails.

You should also establish a routine. The reason I arrive at my desk at 7:20am in the morning is not because I love to see the sun rise over the Honourable Artillery Company grounds, it enables me to clean up my inbox before I start the day’s work.

Acknowledge, respond, file,
delete, unsubscribe. I even noticed a useful Google tool that allows you to drag and drop unsolicited emails into a folder and the software will automatically unsubscribe you.

Other countries are rather more fortunate. According to recent reports, a French trade union is negotiating on behalf of its members that all email is turned off at 6pm so no further work can be done, even by somebody who wants to.

Unfortunately, that option is never likely to be available to those of us in the UK, so we must all take responsibility to keep on top of email traffic.

Geraint Jones is a private client partner at Reeves

He writes the regular in-practice article on doing business for Private Client Adviser