emails – Nonprofit AF

[Image description: A dark brown puppy lying down, facing the camera, with piercing big eyes. Image obtained from Pixabay.com]

Hi everyone. If you are reading this, it means that 2018 is here, and your holiday break—if you had one—is over. No more stuffing your face with food and binge-watching “The Crown” and “Godless” on Netflix. You must now face the depthless abyss of anguish and despair that is your email inbox, and the half-checked vortex of misery and regrets that is your to-do list.

You’re not alone. If you wish you were back in your warm cozy bed and under a fluffy comforter that seems at this moment like it’s stuffed with puppy snuggles and angel kisses, we can all relate. Most of us feel like crap. Heck, I plan to be surly and scowling this entire morning, starting with today’s staff meeting, led by my Managing Director. If there’s an icebreaker that involves going around the room and sharing New Year’s resolutions or something, I am going to stab someone with a swag pen.

If you’re in a similar state of mind, here are a few tips to ensure that your day, and the start to your year, goes well, and that no one gets hurt in the process. Like with a strategic plan, use what’s helpful, ignore the rest. Continue reading “12 tips to ensure you don’t stab anyone on your first day back from break”

Hi everyone. Happy Thanksgiving this week! You are a sexy and awesome unicorn. I’m thankful for you and all you do to make our community better. I hope that you take a well-deserved break. One that is unencumbered with the thought that while you’re spending time with your family, there are hundreds or thousands of emails in your inbox, and they multiply by the minute, each one important, and yet you continue to neglect them because you are a terrible human being and your colleagues are probably spitting in your direction when you pass them.

We as a society have a horrible relationship with emails. It is our primary means of communication with people both inside and outside our organizations, and yet it is probably one of our biggest sources of stress.

The relative efficiency of email makes it ironically inefficient, because more people are now going to use it, a phenomenon that may be explained by the Efficiency, or Jevons, Paradox. Compounding the situation is The Competency Dilemma: The more competent you are, the more work you get. Applied to emails, this means that the faster and better you are at responding to emails, the more emails you are going to receive Continue reading “7 Creative Tips for Managing Email and Email-Induced Anxiety”