HR Carnival: I'm Finally In!

The newest Carnival of HR is up at Guerilla HR and this time I finally contributed something. Patrick Williams even gave Employees Are A Necessary Evil the award for most shocking post title ;-)


Short commercial break:
Jon Ingham from the Strategic HCM blog and another Carnival of HR participant, will hold a webinar on 11 September 2008 about The Evolution Continues: Trends in Digital HR (free registration here).

Jon is based in the UK, wrote a book and you can follow him on Twitter.


And finally, a little walk down memory lane:

• I mentioned the Carnival of HR in November 2007 and it was hosted by... Patrick Williams at Guerilla HR! Follow the link to find out what I once (allegedly) said about working in HR.
• I also mentioned another Carnival of HR that same month and disclosed what I wanted to do when I grew up. Now I feel ready to contribute.

The next Carnival of HR will be released 17 September 2008 at Sharp Brains. The full schedule can be found at the Evil HR Lady's.
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Email Guerrilla Techniques 4

How's the cute girl from marketing doing? Still haven't had time to drink a coffee with her? In this case it's definitely time for another installment of... Guerrilla Techniques!

Did you test the previous GT's? Haven't gotten yourself fired yet? Then keep on reading.

Email Guerrilla Technique #4
Do you ever get emails with random requests sounding like a 10-year-old was sharing his thoughts about life, the universe and everything in a chat room? Or emails that don't make any sense and obviously took the requester a maximum of 10 seconds to write?

Yes? In this case, here's what you should do:

• Delete the email!
• Important: don't forget to also delete the message from the "Deleted Items" folder.
• If it was important, you will get a reminder.
• Should you ever get a reminder, apply Email Guerrilla Technique #2.

"This is just plain rude," you might say. True, but keep the following in mind:

1. The sender of the email showed you zero respect (how's that for rude?)
   
2. This technique should only be used in extreme situations when you see no other solution

And now take a break and have a coffee with the cute girl from marketing! I mean, please, how much longer do you want to keep her waiting? Just remember: It's all about priorities!

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Email Guerrilla Techniques 3

So many emails, so little time and you're still thinking about throwing that chair out of the window. Again, desperate times call for... Guerrilla Techniques!

As always, use at your own risk since your boss may not appreciate.

But first a few links to articles that helped me go from an average of 2'000+ messages in my inbox to less than 50:

• article series Inbox Zero at 43folders and Merlin Mann's presentation at Google.
• Gina Trapani's Trusted Trio at Lifehacker.

However, my Guerrilla Techniques are more fun...

Email Guerrilla Technique #3
If you receive very long emails, you can of course try to understand what you might have to do while

• supporting the killing of innocent trees
• showing off your excellent skills in analysis and synthesis
• and drawing a cute little graphic because otherwise there's just no way you will ever make sense of this monster of an email!

Or you could use a variant of Guerrilla Technique #2 ("I have no clue what you want."). In this case, just write back:

I'm currently working on several urgent projects. Please summarize in 2-3 bullet points and state in 1 sentence what you need from me.

If this happens a lot, you can also use Lifehacker's Texter to insert a standard text in less than 3 seconds (see also this previous post for more information about Texter).

And then have a coffee with the cute girl from marketing while you wait for a reply.
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Email Guerrilla Techniques 2 (Only Apply If Really, Really Desperate)

Does email overload sound familiar? You're looking at your inbox and don't know where to start? Desperate times call for... Guerrilla Techniques!

But first, what qualifies as being really, really desperate?
Here's an example: You're staring at your computer, can't remember what you were about to do, it's past midnight, you're still at the office, you realize you're completely screwed and you definitely feel like throwing your chair through the (closed) window.

Email Guerrilla Technique #2
If you receive emails saying "please take care" and realize that it's the result of a 15 round email tennis match where half a dozen people used their creativity to hide information here and there, or it's a single message that is just plain cryptic, then it's time for Email Guerrilla Technique #2.

• don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out what you're supposed to do (and risk wasting your time delivering the wrong thing).
• Within seconds of reading the message, fire back a reply saying "I'm not sure I understand your request. Please specify how I can help you."
  
• Don't wait, do it right away.
• Use your time for truly urgent and important things while you wait for a reply (or have a coffee with the cute girl from marketing).
• Celebrate as soon as you realize that a lot of your requests for clarification never get answered (less work for you!)

To be continued.
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Email Guerrilla Techniques (Only Apply If Really, Really Desperate)

Sometimes your workload can become just too much and you have no clue how to get the situation back under control. Desperate times call for... Guerrilla Techniques!

Just be careful if you really wish to apply them since your boss and co-workers might not be too happy about it.

Does this sound familiar? Your inbox contains more messages than there are stars in the sky. You read most of them, but can't remember if and what you're supposed to do.

Email Guerrilla Technique #1

• Move all messages from your inbox to a folder called "TooMuch", "IGiveUp" or whatever makes you feel better.
• Start over with a clean slate
• Never go to this folder again unless you're looking for a specific message you know must be in there somewhere.
• Trust me, you won't go to this folder nearly as often as you might think.

More Guerrilla Techniques soon.
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