---
title: "e-mail Project"
authors: ["psychotherapyspr", "psychotherapysho", "admin"]
date: "2021-11-24"
tags: ["email", "work-organisation"]
image:
caption: "E-mail Chain Massacre"
focal_point: "Center"
preview_only: false
---

## TL;DR

There is not enough time in the day to produce longhand responses to vast majority of e-mails. In order to respond to a good number of e-mails a rule is employed: *If the response can fit into 3 sentences we send this response. If not - direct communication is suggested.*

## Longer explanation of: **Why is this email only three sentences?**

Email can be an effective form of communication, however it can often end up taking most of our time and create great demands on ourselves and our colleagues. Many times an email can be a short request for the sender but in reality asks a great deal from the responder.

By limiting responses to three sentences the "email fatigue" we all experience can be mitigated and important and complex topics can instead be discussed in scheduled meetings or in ad hoc face to face communcations. The quality of f2f communication is simply higher - often you can resolve in 3 minutes something that would need 15 e-mails and you still would feel uncertain about the outcome.

The three sentence rule means that you will need to ask yourself two questions before replying. First, is is possible to respond with 3 sentences? Second, if not what is the next step to take? (call the sender, give the sender your phone number, arrange a meeting, delegate to the relevant person to deal with this).

By limiting time spent on email we can focus more of our attention on the patient care and less time on administration.

> A succint statement on the three sentences approach can be found [here.](http://three.sentenc.es/)

Other resources:
Newport, C., 2021. *A World Without Email*. New York: Penguin Publishing Group.

## Shared area for illustrations:

Here each of us will write 3 bulletpoints of what method of dealing with work from the book especially appealed to us. We will do it as a numbered list 1 to 3 where 1 is our most loved method and 3 is also good but only after method 2.

Then we will meet and talk about this and implement in the webpage.

The webpage link will be something that we can add to our e-mail signature or auto-responder.

Roberts will also prepare a literature list to add to this page - aiming for about 4-5 publications one of which will be the Cal Newport's book.

#### Psychotherapy Tutor:

1. **Shared work tracking** (process spreadsheets). See [Therapy tracking test sheet](https://nhs.sharepoint.com/:x:/s/msteams_d112a4/EWUW5UegFcBNpCNIxuF6RQcBLXj_DC_-VhTJ2g-FCmni5A?e=i1EdnE) for supervision groups to manage patients shared between departments. There is no need to e-mail the patient progress can be seen in the spreadsheet. To avoid clutter, filters on Actual Finish Date and Supervision Group are employed. This way we do not need to delete rows from the sheet, but can instead accumulate data over time.
2. **Speaking to people** instead of e-mail (much better bandwidth, avoidance of ambiguity, e-mail or clinical documentation serve only to set formally what has been negotiated; negotiating something complex over e-mail is very hard and inefficient)
3. **Batching e-mail** - only half an hour per day towards the end of the day. Also short form of e-mail.
* Exception may seem to be the be *e-mails to GPs* requesting changes in treatment - but they are not; they are just quick clinic letters and need to be treated as such - as the time when doing clinical work. When I am doing clinical e-mail in the middle of the day I deliberately do not pay attention to the rest of the e-mail. I am in "send-only mode".
4. **Delegating** tasks to admin help. A useful distinction emerges - only those tasks which can be done by admin personnel can be called *admin*. For example formatting a letter and sending it, putting an appointment date in calendar, tracking opt-ins etc. The content which cannot be done by admin person is actually clinical work.

#### Psychotherapy SHO

1. one
2. two
3. three

#### Psychotherapy SpR

1. Dedicating a set period of time each day to tackle emails. *[Batching of e-mails]*
2. Utilising admin team to stay focused on highly skilled tasks *[Delegating admin]*
3. If it's not worth standing up and knocking on your colleagues door about, it can wait. *[Prioritising]*