It doesn’t matter where you start your workday - in the office, on the train, at your kitchen table, or even in bed.
The first application that grabs your attention in the morning is likely your email. That is because you are conditioned and feel compelled to open it. In itself this is not a major issue. How could it be when email is the most proven form of universal communication in the digital age?
How can we have a problem with an instrument that has helped revolutionise commerce?
There is no problem with email, the problem is that we’re misusing it. And it all starts when we use email as a work management tool. When we enable it to dictate what work we focus on often to our own detriment. Email is simply not designed for this.
Not convinced? See if any of these sound familiar - the three worst things you can do with email.
1. Allow it to dictate your priorities
- Since email is one of the most widely used apps many people mistakenly use it a work management tool.
- We allow it to dictate what we’re going to spend our day doing without giving too much thought to priorities.
- Most of this is down to the constant notification distractions which often take us off task, causing us to lose our focus on the job at hand.
- Factor in that we are conditioned to reply to an email as soon as we get it so we feel like we’ve crossed something off the list – before we know it we’ve got several pieces of work open along with multiple tabs and folders as we seek the answers we feel compelled to provide.
- This is one of the reasons we can arrive at the end of a busy day but have little to show for it – a lot of activity but little action.
2. Use it as a group communication tool
- We’ve all experienced those out of control email threads when we message the whole team.
- The wheels start falling off because there’s often not enough time to read and reply to each one before the next one pops up.
- Not all of them are even relevant but we have to give them our time just in case there’s one that might provide some value.
- What’s worse is these replies often cause the conversation to go off track.
- You wish you hadn’t hit the send button and the only option is to have another meeting – another great distraction and momentum killer.
3. Use it as a vehicle for document collaboration
- Ever finished a draft proposal and sent it out for review and within hours there’s four versions floating around?
- Some are marked up with comments, some have suggestions in the email thread, while others are indiscriminately saved to the shared drive.
- Eventually after a lot of time and effort on your part, trying to wrangle a host of disparate comments and alterations, you send it to the client as an attachment.
- But the version in your email is different from the one in your shared drive and you’ve still got the client’s input to come.
- You wish you’d never sent it out.
- Welcome to the world of lost or incorrect documents!
But what’s the solution? While there are some shortfalls, we know the value of email so do we just put up with these and reap the benefits email provides?
We absolutely can… but there is a better way.
PIQNIC is helping companies tame their inbox while building more connected and productive teams. PIQNIC is a super platform purpose built to bring work management, team collaboration and document management together in one place enabling your teams to:
- Start projects
- Manage tasks
- Find information
- Share files
- Review Documents
- Make decisions
- Build Workflows
- Message anyone
From anywhere!
Without leaving the platform!
It’s a single-platform replacement for all your single-purpose apps.
With PIQNIC on your team:
- You will never lose another document or file
- Your information is safe, secure and instantly available
- You and management can see how your teams are working in real time
- You can put an end to pointless meetings, endless email threads, and numerous distractions
- You can invite any one to join in – so your clients and suppliers are on the same page.
If this sounds too good to be true it’s not.
Learn ABOUT PIQNIC or CONTACT US and to see how we can help your teams unchain themselves from email and get more work done.
What's your experience of working in this area? Let us know in the comments below: