Conquering Email Insanity

Dmitri Leonov is Vice President of Sanebox. 

If you think you’re the only person slammed with email, you’re wrong. Email has quickly become the main means of work-related communication for everyone. According to a study by McKinsey, an average person receives over emails per day and spends 28 percent of their work time reading and responding to emails. For most professionals this is a huge distraction getting in the way of getting actual work done. Here’s how you can conquer it.

Don’t let email control you
The inherent instant gratification of clearing your inbox provides a brief feeling of accomplishment, but it’s really not productive. Doing email is just one part of work. Determine how much time you want to spend in your inbox on a given day and don’t exceed it. When you first open your inbox in the morning, star/flag emails that must be dealt with today, but make sure to focus on your top priorities first before diving into your Inbox.

Dedicate 30-minute blocks every 2 hours to staying on top of email. If you need more time, make it 45-minute blocks, but it’s critical to not let your Inbox control you.

Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize
When you do make it to your Inbox, it’s key to remember that not all emails are created equal. Most email clients give each email the same amount of real estate on the screen making it hard for our brain to discriminate. This creates a tendency to give each email the same amount of attention upfront. In reality not all emails are created equal. Some need to be read and responded to right away (important and urgent priorities). Some can wait until later (important but not urgent priorities). Others should be archived or deleted in bulk.

This means that some emails will never be responded to, and that’s OK in the world of limited time and resources. Start with your top opportunities and make sure you dedicate enough time to them. Even if you don’t get to the smaller stuff, you’ll feel great that you went after your top leads and gave them your best.

Be Decisive
When checking your email decide what to do with each email immediately:

• Respond if it’s absolutely necessary or takes less than two minutes
• Delete it
• Archive it
• Defer it and respond later
• Develop a plan of action from the email

This approach is called Inbox Zero, and has become a popular email management method. It prevents looking at the same email twice, which is one of the greatest time wasters (and something we are all guilty of)!

Putting these tips to work will not only make you more productive but will reduce your stress level as well!

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BusinessNewsDaily.