Taming the Email Beast

One resource that leaders never have enough of is time.  Strong time management requires you to say no and set priorities, which is something most of us can continually improve.  One of the biggest time-wasters is email.

Don’t get me wrong:  Email has provided some helpful benefits.  It allows you to keep a record of your communications and allows you to send information to people without being concerned about whether they are available at that time.  But most people use email a little addictively, checking it constantly and allowing it to take time away from more important tasks.  We also use it a little delusionally, believing it’s possible to check email while being productive at other things, despite the neuroscience research that explodes the multi-tasking myth.  Smartphones have only magnified this phenomenon.

So how do we fix this?  How do we put email in its place and use it as a tool but not a driver of our work lives?  Here are some tips.  (Some of these come from a book called, appropriately enough, Never Check Email in the Morning by Julie Morgenstern, which I highly recommend). 

1. Like Ms. Morganstern says, don’t check email until at least an hour into your day.  I’ll give you a minute to pick yourself up off the floor.  Yes.  I said wait an hour to check your email.  Use that hour to do the most critical task of that day.  Spend a minute or two at the end of the previous day deciding what that will be and then do it.  You will start your day with an important accomplishment, regardless of what vortex of crazy ensues from that point forward.  If you work in an industry that has mission-critical emails first thing in the morning, such as orders that come in overnight and must be filled immediately, move that hour to immediately after you look at the critical emails.
2. Turn off your email and only read and answer emails during set times during the day.  Most people fear that they are missing out on something by doing this, but it’s important to begin seeing that email is not for urgent matters.  Try setting times – say, 10 am, 2 pm, and 4 pm – as email times.
3. Answer emails immediately if you can do it in 2 minutes or less.  Productivity expert David Allen recommends that emails that require more than two minutes should be delayed.  You can move it to the end of your designated email checking time or to another of those time slots later in the day.  Then you can power through the quickies and reserve time for your more thoughtful responses.
4. If you genuinely can’t turn off your email or need to baby-step your way into it, at least turn the email alert sound off.  It’s almost impossible to ignore and takes you out of the flow of whatever you are working on.
5. If an email string involves two or more replies, use the phone or in-person discussions to address the issue.  If you need a record of what was decided, send a quick summary email after you talk.
6. Set your outbox so that it delays sending by 5 minutes to help avoid those “Oops, I forgot to include this” follow up emails.  This will also help you avoid the dreaded “I really wish I hadn’t sent that” emails.
7. Train yourself and others.  Ask them to use the phone or in-person discussions if an email is more than two paragraphs.  Morganstern recommends that you should state right at the top or in the subject line what you want from the receiver – please review and advise, double-check, etc. -- especially if you simply must send a long email.   Help others understand that email is not instant message and anything urgent should be handled by phone, text, or in person.
8. Realign your priorities.  If you wear your “I leave every day at zero inbox” priority like a badge of honor, rethink this.  In most workplaces, there are much more important tasks to be done each day than responding to each and every email on the same day. 
9. Use the organization tools in your email solution.  Some allow you to set rules so that newsletters, blog updates, and “FYI” type emails will go to a file to be read later.  Set alerts to remind you to reply to an email by a certain date or time.

These are a few tips to get you started with keeping email in perspective, allowing it to serve you and not vice versa. 

What other tips have you found to be helpful in taming the email beast?