By Meggin McIntosh, “The Ph.D. of Productivity”™ and Paper Tiger Expert. Meggin recommends Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management to get everything in your life organized — not just for filing paper.
Some dandy acronyms exist that can increase your productivity (and that of your colleagues) when using email. Four of the best and easiest to implement are shared in this article.
EOM: End of Message – The time to use this acronym is when the entire message can be encapsulated in your email’s subject line.
NRN: No Response Necessary – Let’s say somebody has asked you for some information and you send them an email with that information, and then at the end of your email, you put NRN. It’s helpful to follow that with “No Response Necessary” in brackets or parentheses. This helps your receiver to know that “You don’t need to write me back about this.” This can be useful when you send out an informational email to people to give them a location for a meeting or some general announcement.
NNTR: Not Necessary to Respond – This one is essentially the same thing as NRN. It is not that one is better than the other, it’s just an alternative to NRN and another common one that people are beginning to use. Remember, be sure to put the explanation of what NNTR means when you are first starting out using this acronym.
NTN: No Thanks Necessary – The reason folks need to use this acronym is because we are friendly people, so, when people do things for us, we thank them. In email, this can get out of hand because then they thank us for thanking them, and then we say “No problem, happy to do it,” and they will write back with, “You’re always so nice” and so forth. This is called email ping-pong and it does not enhance anyone’s productivity. Before long, one email can turn into about 17 – many of which are meaningless. No one has time for this. When you send something to somebody that they requested, then you could put either NRN or NTN (No Thanks Necessary). They may not be able to help themselves, so they may write back and say, “I know you said not to thank you, but thank you anyway.” You have to resist the impulse to write them back because somebody has to stop this insanity.
When you take a look at your emails, you could easily see that 20 to 40 percent of the emails that are sent are the unnecessary back and forth of ‘thanks,’ ‘got it,’ ‘see you there,’ and the like. No real information is exchanged, but rather the little “You’re the gal”, “I try to be”, “Everybody counts on you.” If you want to have a love-fest then call up the person on the phone or go down to that person’s office and give him/her a hug or whatever you need to do.
I think we have to be careful about using acronyms that people aren’t sure what is meant by them. When I first begin using EOM, NRN, NNTR, or NTN with any person or group of people, I always spell it out, too, but then also using the acronym so that, eventually they can begin to think about what it is. You might want to consider sharing these ideas with a group. For example, let’s say you’re on a committee, and as a committee you may want to decide here are a few acronyms you will use so everybody is clear on EOM, No Response Necessary and the like.
Bonus tip: You can also use the ideas included in this article with voicemail. Although you are not using an acronym, at the end of the voicemail to someone you can say, “I’ll assume you got this. No need to call me back,” because otherwise, some people will call you back, “Thanks for sending me the information.” Then you’ve got a voicemail that you now need to respond to.
As David Shipley and Will Schwalbe say in their book Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, “duplitasking,” i.e., when someone calls you to make sure you got the email they just sent, is unnecessary in essentially all instances. Trust the systems that are in place (email and voicemail) to be sending what needs to be sent. Then move on to other areas of your work and life.
There are a multitude of great tips available to help all of us be more effective and efficient in our email – and other types of – communication. To access some of these and to keep moving forward on your goals for more peaceful productivity, join others (worldwide) who receive Meggin’s weekly emails (and see what is available for download at no cost at the following websites):
**Top Ten Productivity Tips (http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com)
**Keys to Keeping Chaos at Bay (http://www.KeepingChaosatBay.com)
(c) 2010 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh supports smart people who want to be more productive so that they can consistently keep their emphasis on excellence. Sound interesting? It is!
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