Tom’s Tech Tip: Legal Nurse Consultants You Can Take Control of Your Threads – Email Threads That Is!

Recently a colleague updated her iPhone^® to the newest iOS and told me she hated it. When prompted to explain why, she said the update had changed the way it displayed her email. She showed me that email in her inbox was showing up as strings of nested email instead of as a list of the individual emails she expected to find in her inbox. I’d recently updated my iPhone to the same iOS so was able to quickly help her with the issue. Her email settings had been changed to Organize by Thread and Complete Threads were switched on. We turned off those two settings and her email returned to the way she liked it. Problem solved – happy dance time.

When it comes to email threads, Certified Legal Nurse Consultants tend to be split into three groups: 1) Those who have no idea what I’m talking about; 2) Those who love threaded (or conversation) email organization; and 3) Those who loath conversation email organization.

You know which group you’re in. If you’re a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant in the first group, let me begin by defining email thread as an email that contains all the prior emails on that same subject to which the recipient has been included by replying herself or replied to by others. The email continues to build in length as more and more responses are made but the thread only includes those who, for the most part, were included on the original distribution list. The emails will appear in chronological order, usually with the most recent closest to the top. If you have your email set to some variation of automatically quote the original email in the reply then your email will do this. It’s a great way to keep track of an email thread but it gets long because each email you send or receive contains the entire thread (and the email signatures of every party, further lengthening the thread). This is my preferred method as I can quickly grasp the content of any email simply by reading it and it’s a great way to keep track of a conversation with an attorney-client on a particular legal nurse consultant job.

An email conversation, or conversation threading, on the other hand is very similar to a thread, in my opinion, but is differentiated because each email does not contain the entire long thread. Each email displayed in your inbox will have all other emails related to that same topic (legal nurse consulting-related or not) displayed chronologically below and often slightly to the right of that email. This allows any CLNC^® consultant to keep track of who is responding to a communication without building that communication into lengthy emails. Assuming your email client handles complete threads, the related messages should show in that conversation even if you’ve filed them in a subfolder (when you organized and cleaned out your inbox).

There’s no right or wrong when it comes to whether, or how, you thread email in your legal nurse consulting business. Choose your preference and be sure your mobile device and computer’s email client are both set accordingly.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

P.S. Email conversation threading isn’t for everyone. Have you tried it yet? Comment here.

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