Personally, I prefer communication via Teams as it is more convenient to have quick, simple chats in comparison to email. For a quick question, teams tends to generate a much quicker response than email threads. In terms of email management, the most reasonable way to not be overwhelmed is to allocate time at the end of every day to read emails. If this is not done, then emails will accumulate as days go on, leading to chaos and a lot of missed messages. Although it may be time-consuming and seem pointless to have a time for simply opening emails, it is much better to do this than to miss an important email.

I think the key thing is to have rules so your emails are auto sorted. This will help you save a lot of time. 

You will so much time everyday. If you need help setting it up, just look up a tutorial on how to set it. 

As @shahil mentioned, setting up rules in your email to sort is a great tool for keeping your email organized. There are a few ways to do this:creating a folder for every team member so that you can reference emails sent by that team member, create folders by topic (biocompatibility, manufacturing, design verification, etc.), create folders for miscellaneous emails (company announcements, etc). In the time management book, “Getting Things Done” by David Allen, a good tip that I took from it is to  start each day by looking at your calendar, not your email. Once you’ve mapped out your plan for the day and what you want your output to be, then you can tackle the input from others in your email. This will help a project manager increase productivity. In general, I recommend that book for project managers as it gives many practical tips for productivity that are very useful for someone who is managing multiple people and deliverables. 

Rather than constantly e­xamining the inbox throughout the day, spe­cific occasions should be set aside to examine and answer e­mails. This assists lessen diversions and pe­rmits to center around other undertakings. Use email channels and organize­rs to naturally order incoming emails in light of criteria, for e­xample, sender, subje­ct or watchwords. This assists will sort the inbox and makes it simpler to nee­d and discover critical emails. A method should be created to categorize e­mails according to urgency and significance. Mark or flag emails that ne­ed quick reaction, and plan time to answe­r less pressing emails afte­rwards. When writing emails, strive for simplicity and bre­vity. Plainly express the inte­ntion of the email in the topic line­ and utilize bullet points or numbere­d lists to convey information effective­ly.

I have always struggled to keep my email inbox clean. I always find myself reading the subject line and if it is not important to me I don't even open it. Just from being at NJIT I get tons of emails I am not interested in. This is why I think that conversation through teams is much more useful. Teams can be accessed in many different ways from computer to phone applications. There are chat functions that work like texting, but the best part in my opinion is that work can be done collaboratively in teams. So, in addition to keeping communication in a neat function, a project manager could also use the collaborative approach to monitor their employees work without actually having to reach out to them. I believe that teams is a much more efficient way of communication than email and should be used in all work areas. 

At a non-profit I used to work at, the mode of communication was different when I came from the greater organization and specifically from my team's leader. The organization would typically communicate big advancements, changes, requests, etc. with us via email and it was only on certain occasions that the entire organization at all levels would come together. Whereas, my team leader really communicated with us both via email and a group messaging system. Of course, our team leader would send emails to communicate general news, weekly goals, or last minute changes. However, we were also communicating frequently through a group based messaging system (similar to slack) and it helped us communicate with each other to achieve our project milestones, even when we were busy. 

One other thing that really helped our team stay coordinated was by using an electronic calendar system that allowed our team leader to see what tasks our schedules were occupied with. This allowed her to coordinate with team members and shift time/resources towards a specific goal or another to move the project forward efficiently and successfully. The transparency really helped everyone coordinate.  

I would rather interact via Teams since these platforms are ideal for brief exchanges, group discussions, and project collaboration because they provide real-time communication and file sharing options.On the other hand, emails are better suited for detailed communication or documentation. I know that people can receive hundreds of emails a day and this can lead to lost emails. However, project managers can apply several strategies to more effectively manage the email inbox. These may include regularly deleting old emails and unsubscribing from unnecessary mailing lists. Additionally, to save time and maintain communication consistency, project managers can create and use email templates for frequently asked questions or answers.

Project managers can reclaim their inbox with a strategic approach. Schedule specific times to check emails and ruthlessly prioritize them. They can leverage tools like filters, labels, and canned responses to automate organization and save time.

Choosing between emails and Teams depends on the context. Emails remain essential for formal communication, documentation, or group updates. But for real-time collaboration, quick discussions, and sharing files, Teams shines. Many PMs find success with a hybrid approach, using Teams for ongoing work and emails for formal exchanges.

You can have emails auto sort. This is actually very helpful. This saves hours in my day. You should try it. Once you start doing it. I highly doubt you will ever not use it. 

I think both methods of communication have their uses but I also think that teams is able to do everything email can do and also has a better communication aspect to it. Not only can you direct message and voice/video call with ease, but you can also exchange files just like you can on email. Teams allows you to communicate easily with more than one person at once by creating groups, which has a much better user interface than emails do. However, at the same time there is still a tendency for people to use emails in more formal interactions with others. I think teams is better for an already established team as everyone knows each other it kind of takes the formality out of the conversation and allows the conversation to move freely. But for cases of speaking to hire ups or other companies I think emailing would be a better option.

Emails are best for more formal communications and messages that are meant to be sent to a large number of individuals. In case multiple emails build up, it is a good idea to re-evaluate what older emails are important to the current situation at hand. As projects change over time, so does what information seems relevant. Considering this, older emails can be deleted with consideration of saving documents and summaries of the information discussed. It is important to keep a record of what is deleted in case said information becomes relevant again.

For less formal communications, Teams is a better means of communication within a project group, removal of the same level of formality within emails helping create a more cohesive team and fluid communication. Not having to worry about all the nuances of formal communication aids in time and efficiency for each member to convey information to one another. However, one flaw about teams can be issues in terms of document formatting. When I have used teams in the past, word docs or excel spreadsheets have had different formats after I sent them. Sending them through email helped prevent this formatting error. It is important to watch out for technical issues similar to this when using Teams to ensure the issues in communication do not occur due to a reliance on this method of communication.

One of the best ways to manage your inbox is built directly into every major email provider and/or manager. I have not seen many people use this function personally, but you can create customizable folders and filters using "rules." For example, you can set up a rule that filters emails with specific key words in their subject line to a specific folder. If you work for a company that sends a daily newsletter or shift handoff, you can create folders that filter for the words such as the title of the daily newsletter or "handoff," respectully. You can also filter emails via sender, so if your email is being overrun by automated Teams messages that someone is sending you a Teams message, those can easily be filtered out of your inbox. You can also use that feature to filter for important senders, such as direct bosses or other important figures who regularly send important or urgent emails. These are only a few examples of the many, many rules you can apply to your inbox to keep it organized. As an employee of a major pharmaceutical company, I receive dozens of daily emails and I personally use multiple rules to categorize and organize my inbox. 

As for which form of communication I prefer, I prefer Teams. I have always seen it to be much more efficient and quicker compared to emails. Emails have an extra layer of formality to them, and responses are not typically even needed. Oftentimes, email is used to notify larger groups of people and be a more permanent and official form of communication. Because of this typical use and general understanding, emails typically do not get a reply and even if they do, it is typically not a very quick one. On the other hand, Teams is much more direct. Groups are used, but Teams is meant to be a direct and individual contact method. It is treated much more like a more official form of texting, being much less official than email but still providing a quick method of direct communication to an individual/individuals and often enough receiving much faster replies. However, email still has its place as Teams is never an official/GMP source of communication. Formality and GMP compliance is absolutely necessary in the real world, so communication beyond using Teams is still essential to any company and email often serves this purpose alongside other GMP sources.

Email is more useful than Teams in that correspondences can be saved, marked as priority, or forwarded. If a question cannot be answered, then an email can be saved or sorted to easily be found later when an answer has been obtained. That email can also be forwarded to a person who can directly answer that question so that all further communications can happen between them instead of you acting as the middle-man. If this was done in Teams, then that chat would be buried beneath the other chats that pop up that might not even involve anything related to what is currently being worked on.

Emails also have the added feature of CC and BC that allow individuals to directly respond to a certain query without alerting others. This can be done in Teams, but would necessitate additional work to provide context on the individual asking a question or work in sending the message to everyone individually (which would also clutter your inbox and bury important messages beneath them).