The Art of Email Management: How to Stay Organized and Productive
“You’ve got mail!”
For some, this may be a nostalgic walk down memory lane. Three little words that used to trigger a small thrill.
For the younger audience, you’re likely wondering what’s so exciting about that… More emails? That just sounds like more work.
Email.
Likely an integral part of all of our days. Most definitely a regular trigger for dread, overwhelm, and stress with the constant stream of messages flooding your inbox and seeming to throw your priorities out of whack. And just when you think you have them all under control…
”Ping!” You’ve got mail…
Email can be time-consuming and distracting. You may find yourself spending hours a day checking and responding to emails. This distraction pulls you away from other projects and controls how you spend your time.
On top of all of that…email builds on itself. Lots of emails out…means lots of emails in.
Despite all of this, email is still a convenient way to communicate and share information. It allows for quick and efficient communication and connection. So it can be a precious tool as we navigate throughout the day.
But, it’s important to be strategic with how we control this tool.
By implementing some simple strategies for inbox management, you can ensure that email isn’t throwing off your priorities or impacting your productivity. And is, instead, remaining a helpful tool to have in your arsenal.
My two simple strategies:
Limit how often you check your email, then…
Schedule time to process your inbox.
1. Limit how often you check your email
The average worker is interrupted every 11 minutes. That means you could be spending 33% of the day recovering from interruptions. That’s 2 to 3 hours per day. 2 to 3 hours…
Just imagine what you could accomplish if you removed interruptions and reclaimed 2 extra hours in your day / 10 hours in your work week.
Sign me up!
I recommend checking your email 3 times a day.
This means turning off your email notifications. Closing your inbox. And eliminating the dreaded “Ping!” You’ll get to it when it’s time.
If you are responding to your inbox every time a new message comes in, this is pulling your focus away from the project you were working on when the email came in. Then, not only does it take time away to read the email and figure out a response, but it can take 25 minutes to just get back into the flow of your project.
Sounds exhausting. And very unproductive. No wonder you find yourself working late just to keep caught up.
By limiting the number of times you are checking email throughout your day, you can stay focused on other tasks throughout the day to make sure you’re completing them quickly and efficiently.
Also, batching your email time into chunks allows you to be more efficient in processing all your emails because you can be laser-focused on planning and organizing and not distracted by other projects.
Now, what do those 3 slots per day look like?
2. Schedule time to process your inbox
You’ve committed to limiting the number of times you check your email. Excellent!
Now, actually schedule this block of time on your calendar to process your inbox. My schedule looks like this:
8–8:30 AM — This gets me immediately up to speed on anything that came in since I ended my day so there won’t be any surprises.
12–12:30 PM — This gets me caught up right before taking a lunch break so I’ll know about anything that may affect how I plan to wrap up my day.
5–5:30 PM — This leaves a clean slate as I head out for the day (hello, Inbox Zero!).
So what does it mean to “process your inbox”? This is a concept introduced by productivity coach David Allen. When you “process your inbox”, you go through each work item in your email, decide what needs to be done, and take action. This will result in 3 types of actions:
Take action — If the action item of the email will take less than 2 minutes to complete, do it right then.
Schedule time on your calendar to complete the task this week — If the action item will take longer than 2 minutes and aligns with your priorities for the week, schedule time directly on your calendar for when you will complete it.
Add the task to your master to-do list — If the action item is not a priority for the week, add it to your Master To Do List to schedule for a later date.
Three easy actions = an easy path to Inbox Zero.
Now, some time management experts may frown upon checking email first thing in the morning. The theory behind this recommendation is your email inbox is a to-do list created by other people. So jumping on email first thing in the morning means you are letting other people dictate your priorities. Which I don’t necessarily disagree with…
However, since we all plan our schedules ahead of time (right?), this is less of an issue. We’ve already defined our priorities for the day, leaving some flex time for unknowns. So, if we decide a new action from email aligns with our priorities and needs to be taken care of, we have flex time in the calendar to accommodate. If not, it gets added to the Master To Do list with no worry of forgetting about it, ready to be thoughtfully planned for in an upcoming week.
I, personally, like knowing what conversations may be lingering out there when I start my day. So, if I’m questioned about something that arrived in my inbox last night, I can easily respond with — “yep, I’ll be addressing that this afternoon at 1:00 PM.” While you may get a raised eyebrow from a coworker at your response and well-thought-out plans, you won’t be blindsided by new information.
As Jacqueline Whitmore warns: “When you check your email too often, you become reactive, not proactive.”
When the goal is productivity and taking control of how we spend our time, email can be counterintuitive to this.
The key to managing your email and leveraging it as a powerful tool, instead of letting it be a powerful distraction, is to thoughtfully develop a system that works for you.
Try out these strategies. You may just find yourself with a couple of unused hours to spare… Did someone say “Netflix”?
Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed? Do you feel like there are always important tasks left undone, hanging over your head? It's time to take control of your productivity and prove to yourself you can accomplish anything you put your mind to.
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