I love email. I hate email. I have become a slave to email. I was a late adopter to a smart phone (and am thinking about ditching it) and once felt that it would be a blessing to be able to receive and respond to emails anytime, anywhere. I was wrong, so wrong. In fact I noticed a habit forming, the random act of pulling out my phone and checking my email multiple times a day. All I know is that this is neither an effective or productive way to handle email. My decision was to control email and you can to in a couple easy steps.
1. Remove any audilbe email notification (from phone, tablet and computer). If it dings, it gets attention.
2. Remove any visual email notificatin (from phone, tablet and computer). If it blinks, it gets attention.
3. Check email 2x each day. I check when I get into the office and then within an hour of when I get back from lunch. It is a good idea to let your coworkers know this so they can adapt. (And there are other times when I need to check for a file, but they are few and far between...not a legalist)
4. Get rid of email from your inbox, just like you would snail mail touch it only once. Either reply, delete, delegate/forward or file. I have very few files on my gmail because it has such a good search function. Right now I am pairing my files down to one: Processed Mail.
I am in the process of Email detox and have found that I can concentrate more on my work, and engage more in my relationships. Give it a shot and let me know how it works.
What ways have you found to help manage email?
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