Our Twitter and Facebook feeds are usually full of complete rubbish. You know the sort of thing: “friends” making ambiguous, desperate statements, hoping for some attention; celebs urging you to buy their latest album or watch their latest film and then there’s the worst sort; “You won’t believe what happened when this man burst his spot”. The fact that some people actually click on these links leads us to believe there’s no hope for the future of mankind. However, aside from all that there is the odd useful bit of information.

“Buzzfeed” is one of those bizarre things that only seems to exist in order to furnish us with visual lists. “The 10 Strangest Looking Cats”, “The 13 Buildings That Look Like Hitler”, “28 Birthmarks That Look Like the Nolan Sisters” and so on. Actually, we made up some of those. Anyway, Buzzfeed recently furnished us with an interesting list that related to work emails.

Internal Flame

Regular viewers will know we recently covered the subject of work emails; particularly internal emails. We’re bombarded with them and spend most of our working day reading and replying to them. With regards to the Buzzfeed findings, they’re obviously not real stats and done just for fun but they make some interesting points.

Your inbox is generally stuffed with “reply all” emails from conversations you’re not interested in. You’ll also find confirmations of orders, newsletters and social media updates. There are actually very few emails that are important when you think about it.

Papa's Got a Brand New Brag

When you’re typing an important email, you spend more time thinking about what to call it in the subject line, than you spend actually writing the email’s content.

Your out of office reply is only ever switched on when you want to brag you’re on holiday, rather than to tell people when you’re out on an appointment. Upon your return, the level of anxiety you have over checking your email is equal to the amount of time you were absent from the office.

Sign Off Your Name

75% of your workday is filled with dealing with emails about work. The remaining 15% of your workday is filled with the time you spend actually doing the work itself. You also spend more time checking your emails and reading your emails than you do actually replying to emails.
Editing your emails and your replies to emails merely consists of removing exclamation marks.

The most often used sign off is not your name, your job title or even a “x”. Your sign off is usually, “Sent from my iPhone”.

Promise We Made

We have made this point before but it’s worth making again, too much time is spent dealing with emails. Most internal work emails tend to be random announcements. Much time could be saved recording such items and getting staff to listen to a once weekly, bi-weekly or monthly podcast. Here they will discover the latest news, interviews with CEOs and they can record their own feedback and suggestions.

Now doesn’t that sound very fresh, innovative and interesting? Of course it does. It will also cut down the amount of time spent dealing with those troublesome internal emails. If this sounds like your thing, hit the “Contact Us” button on this website. Give us a call. Or even drop us an email. We promise we will read it!

To view the original Buzzfeed article, click here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/michellerial/kind-regards-thanks-so-much-xoxo-xx-cheers-best?bftw&utm_term=4ldqpfp#.seraAqMlW