Email is a part of life. It is no longer new technology. Chances are you received dozens (if not more) everyday.

Consider these email statistics:

Statistics, extrapolations and counting by Radicati Group from April 2010 estimate the number of emails sent per day (in 2010) to be around 294 billion.294 billion messages per day means more than 2.8 million emails are sent every second and some 90 trillion emails are sent per year. Around 90% of these millions and trillions of message are but spam and viruses.

The genuine emails are sent by around 1.9 billion email users.

You aren’t getting all of those in your InBox but you are getting your share. How can you reduce the amount of emails you get and still communicate effectively?

1.Use the Subject Line

Use the subject line well. Most of us type in a one word general subject thinking it is not important. Wrong! The subject line is the most important piece of the document – make it count. Sometimes, I put everything in the subject line – example: “Reminder: Staff meeting Tomorrow at 10:00 AM in conference room. Come prepared!” That one subject told everyone what they needed to know. No reply was necessary.

Here is how most would have sent that reminder: Subject line – “Reminder” or “meeting”. Then the email would have read: “Don’t forget about the staff meeting tomorrow”.  Then someone would have responded back “When?”. Then “Where?”. Your email would have generated more emails.

Don’t let it happen. Handle it in the Subject Line.

2. Specify the Response you want

When you send out an email don’t leave anything out. Don’t type pages of information (that’s a phone call) but put everything you need in the email and then give the exact response you want.

Here’s a good example:

“Hi Bob. I would love to meet you for lunch on Tuesday. Lets meet at XYZ Restaurant at 11:45. If that works for you, then no response needed – I’ll see you there. If for some reason that doesn’t work for you then email me back the time and the place you wish to meet.

I’m looking forward to it.”

Pastors know that lunch appointments can be difficult to work out via email. But in the above example you handled the appointment with possible no or 1 more email needing to be sent. Hopefully none.

When you are sending the email communicate the exact response you need back and you will save a lot of time.