Although the environmental impact of emails is not among the heaviest, it is still good practice. Cutting down on the sending of emails and instant messages also helps to protect your mental health and reduce stress at work.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Here are a few tips for healthier and more effective management of your emails:
- Limit the number of emails sent and the number of recipients: only send emails to the people concerned, in order to avoid overloading email systems.
- Sort and archive your emails, in particular the heaviest amongst them.
- Give priority to download links for large attachments: using file-sharing services in order to send large documents makes it possible to reduce the size of your emails!
- Unsubscribe from unread newsletters: Sort your subscriptions and unsubscribe from newsletters that you no longer read.
- Clean your mailing lists: Check your mailing lists regularly and delete any contacts that are no longer relevant.
- Do not include any image in your email signature: opt for a simple text signature to reduce the size of your emails. Otherwise, keep the image as small as possible.
- Prioritise face-to-face discussions with your colleagues rather than the sending of emails whenever possible. This not only makes it possible to reduce your volume of emails, but also improves working relationships.
A few resources for further reading: