The constant flood of emails, coupled with the expectation of instant responses, can leave us feeling tethered to our inboxes, jeopardising our ability to focus on important tasks. Moira Dunne provides strategies to strike a balance between responsiveness and productivity
Email is an essential business tool that can dominate our workdays. The volume of email seems higher than ever and there is an increasing expectation of instant response.
We feel we need to be in touch all the time, which plays havoc with plans to get other work done resulting in more time being spent on other people’s priorities.
And time is not the only issue when it comes to email. Email notifications on our screens are compelling and very difficult to ignore.
High email volumes result in an interrupted work environment. Studies show that this impacts the quality of our work, our ability to make decisions and to think things through. Once distracted by an email alert, it can take up to 23 minutes to get the same level of focus back.
So, how can we reduce this impact on our time and performance?
Manage your response time
We have become very responsive, often answering emails immediately, even when we don’t need to. To start to win back time, look for the opportunity to manage this better.
First, think about your email statistics:
- How many emails do you get each day?
- How many interruptions is that?
- How important are those emails? Do they all require an instant response?
Second, consider all your stakeholders.
- What is the agreed response time?
- What is their expectation when it comes to email responses?
Once you have answered the questions about your emails and consider your stakeholder needs, you are able to go to all concerned parties (manager, colleagues, stakeholders) to discuss and agree on an acceptable response time that allows you to work productively but also manage other’s expectations.
Spend less time on email
To start to spend less time on email, there are two ways you can proceed: checking and processing.
Checking email
When checking your email, do a quick scan to check what emails have arrived and respond to anything urgent. You can do this as many times as you need to throughout the day.
Processing email
When processing emails, flag messages that require a response and then sort your inbox by the flag so that these emails stay at the top of your inbox until processed and unflagged.
Because you have flagged the emails needing a reply, and they sit at the top of your inbox for your attention, you can schedule productive email processing/response time blocks in your diary.
However, between those time blocks, you must mute or close out of email to give yourself time for other work, free of email alerts and distractions.
You are still responsive to email but in a controlled way.
Email time blocking is an increasingly common work practice that people are using to boost their productivity.
Breaking the ‘always on’ habit
It can be hard to step away from work when you need to.
Start small by figuring out what checking frequency you need to stay in touch with your clients.
Pick a day when your email volume is usually lower (perhaps on a Friday). Take a morning and try to alternate between checking and processing, using a time block.
When you figure out which method works for you, build it into your schedule/email habits day by day until you have learned to manage your email productively.
Moira Dunne is Founder of beproductive.ie
Moira is providing a free monthly webinar series on the last day of each month. Her next webinar is on Friday, 25 August on how to reset after summer
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