21st century solution to having too much email as a superyacht Captain

There will always be good days and bad days at work. But do you know that your bad days are mainly related poor communication?

Oftentimes, communication problems turn your workday into “finding solution”or“fixing problem.

Now think about this: If miscommunication happens even when you are working very closely with your colleagues onboard the yacht, imagine how hard communicating is when the onshore office is involved?

Even though we live in the 21st century, most of us still use the “old systems” that we think are good enough for our needs.

Nowadays, the main communication tools that we still use are e-mail, phone calls and Excel spreadsheets, which I personally find great for many tasks. However, when it comes to managing operations of a busy superyacht, I believe some tasks can be done faster and with less stress simply by using tools custom built for the needs onboard.

Such tools should not only help you save time and reduce chance  of making mistakes, they should also alleviate stress and allow to delegate better.

A long-lasting relationship, may it be personal or professional, is based on good daily communication and exchange of relevant information (both are usually related to trust and are important blocks of your career growth). Think, for example, did you get any valuable information from your office today? If the answer is no, maybe you are you missing out on something?

Every day, there is important information that you should be made aware of. The question is how to achieve that without having to CC more and more people into emails when your inbox is already exploding!

During the past few months, I have collected feedback  from Captains and Head of Departments working onboard several superyachts, both smaller and larger. Many of them complain about miscommunication between departments and onshore offices, which often leads to lengthy discussions that could be easily avoided. In some cases, it caused delays to get simple tasks done that should have only taken a few minutes to accomplish.

Consider email: chances are each new email you read is about a different topic, which  basically forces you to multitask. Multitasking by itself reduces productivity, splits your mind and causes stress.

You can reduce such multi-tasking at least by receiving less emails related to yacht accounts by implementing a correct yacht accounting communication tool like Latitude 365. It allows to exchange information about all things related to accounts in the software so you can focus on accounts when you check accounts.

There is also a possibility that an important e-mail could get lost in your inbox, or you may never get a response and simply forget about an important question you needed to be answered. All this creates stress as you have to keep those things in mind.

The solution is to use tools that can help you to organize information better so it can be found in one place instead of multiple emails (think how many emails each purchase request requires from the moment it is requested, approved and eventually paid).