How to Save 17 Hours, This Week! (Guest Post)
Photo by Rahul Chakraborty on Unsplash
It’s guest-post time! Today we have a guest post from Emily Lundberg over at Prialto. I’ll preface this post by saying that it was written a few weeks ago, before we entered the new normal of social distancing. So much has changed! However, while everything Emily writes about below is still relevant, and maybe even more so, when you hear her mention “live” conversations, just substitute “video call” or “phone call”
I’ll let Emily take it away!
A study from Quantified Communications found that employees waste an average of 17 hours per week resolving miscommunications. This includes time spent resetting expectations, answering unnecessary questions, completing projects incorrectly, and having to go back and fix them.
Thus, miscommunication is one of the most underestimated productivity killers. To manage your time effectively, you need to communicate messages correctly the first time, so you’re not held back by preventable confusion and mistakes.
Here are five ways to prevent time-consuming miscommunications.
1) Share All of the Information You Need Your Recipient to Know
One of the most common causes of miscommunication is assuming that your recipient knows information that they don’t. Forgetting to include expectations and other relevant details sets your recipient up for failure.
To prevent miscommunication, you need to include the following information whenever you’re discussing projects:
Any context the recipient needs to know. If the information is too exhaustive to share at the moment, let people know where they can find the information.
The project’s deadline if you’re assigning a task or the estimated completion date if you’re giving an update. Staying aligned on timelines prevents conflicts.
Any anticipated challenges that may hinder the project’s progress. Making all stakeholders aware of potential issues early on allows you to resolve fires before they become overwhelming.
Getting aligned on these details prevents time-consuming mistakes and questions later on. If you have lengthy live discussions, follow-up with an email containing action items and key information so people don’t forget.
2) Have Live Discussions as Often as Possible
According to The State of Miscommunication study from Fierce Conversations and Quantum Workplace, 46% of people say they struggle with miscommunications via written mediums compared with 11% when talking in-person.
The research found that people struggle with email and chat when they use those platforms for complex conversations that they should have live, including:
Solving messy problems
Brainstorming ways to approach a new project
Delivering in-depth feedback
Or other nuanced topics that will elicit a lot of ideas and questions that require a deeper discussion.
Even if meeting face-to-face or via video chat isn’t possible, a quick phone call can save you several hours, if not days, of emailing back and forth.
3) Write Clear, Concise Emails
Though you should prioritize live discussions for complex topics, email is an effective medium for fixed information that people may want to save and review later including:
Giving project instructions and timelines
Sharing project updates
FYI messages that don’t need to be discussed (ex. Meeting agendas, team news, upcoming events, etc.)
And other detailed information that people would struggle to remember in a live meeting.
To prevent email miscommunications, you need to write clear, concise emails. Here are some tips:
At the beginning of the email, state your objective. This offers context, so your recipient understands the message.
Explicitly state what action items you need from the recipient and the deadline.
State what action items you’re doing (if relevant).
Edit your email for conciseness and eliminate unnecessary phrases distract from your main message.
This approach to writing emails is more time-consuming than quickly sending messages; however, it will save you time since you’ll deal with fewer mistakes and questions.
4) Use Emojis to Create the Right Tone
The one issue with using very concise, direct language is that it can make your message come across as harsh, even angry at times. If people interpret your message negatively, it can make people defensive and miss the point of your email.
According to communications expert, Nick Morgan, emojis are one of the easiest ways to convey emotions in written messages since one emoji can save you a sentence or two of explaining how you’re feeling.
Adding a simple smiley face at the end of a direction or suggestion for improvement lightens the tone of your email and shows people that you have positive intentions.
5) Keep Conversations in One Place (if possible)
With most teams using a combination of email, task management software, chat, and texting, miscommunications often stem from people mixing up details that were discussed in different platforms.
Not only is it harder to remember conversations that are fragmented between different platforms, but it’s also incredibly time-consuming to find previous messages that you need to reference.
To streamline your conversations, choose one medium for every discussion and encourage the people you work with to have all of their interactions within a single thread or space. For best results, add notes from your in-person meetings so that all relevant information about a project is available for quick reference.
The one exception to this strategy is quick questions about projects. In those cases, the fastest way to move forward is with a quick chat.
Ultimately, to prevent miscommunications, you need to be highly intentional about what mediums you use and the information that you convey. By choosing the most effective mediums for your conversation topics and taking care to give your recipients all of the information they need to know, you’ll be able to spend more time focusing on your strategic projects instead of just talking about them.