There was a time when communication at work ended with the rush of the 5pm post. Now we wonder, how did things get done?
Today we have the possibility of connection 24-7. A deadline of 'today' has stretched from the 5pm of the last post to the 5am pre-morning of tomorrow.
This presents us with opportunity - those of us with office based roles can work from anywhere and pretty much anytime. And the other end of the stick - the challenge of managing relationship with our inboxes.
If you have access to your emails on your phone or even on a laptop you take home then emails can fly in at any time. To enjoy the flexibility that access to our emails provide us, we also need to set boundaries to give us balance. This blog explores two areas - managing your relationship with your emails and ending the relationship with the emails you don't read.
Setting the terms of your relationship with your inbox
Thinking about those days when you don't check your emails very often - holidays / training days / all day offsite meetings - the days when you are fully present with whatever is going on around you. What happens to your emails? How do you manage?
For most of us, we end up checking emails at the end of the day or on our way home. We have plenty and we are then fully present in dedicating our time and attention to sorting them, prioritising them and clearing them
Day to day we tend to deal with emails more immediately as they come in. They distract us and divert our attention away from what we were working on and onto the seemingly urgent matter contained in the email. This ends up with us leaving little time to dedicate to things that are important and less urgent. In the long-run the not urgent important stuff catches up with us and that becomes urgent too. In the end everything is urgent and the emails are still flying in.
By dedicating a slot or slots in the day where you deal with your emails, they can be dealt with an efficient way with your full attention. This also enables full focus to be given to the work you are doing - focusing on the important stuff and not letting it become urgent. And if something is really truly immediately urgent, most people will phone.
When you schedule these slots needs to work for your schedule. Personally, I find that first thing in the morning is not a good time for me, this is when I am most alert and at my best to my best work. I don't want to waste this energy on dealing with emails and so I tend to schedule email time as a break between the periods of dedicated work or at the end of the day to help with planning the next day.
Ending relationships - Unsubscribe!
This is a painful exercise but a worthwhile one. How much time do we waste reading the subject of emails we don't want to see and then deleting them?
Let's say you have on average 5 such email every day (I imagine for most people that's quite a conservative estimate). Focusing your attention on reading the subject, deciding to delete and deleting every day probably takes at least 30 seconds of your time. I'd add a further 30 seconds thinking about whether or not you should unsubscribe and diverting your attention away from whatever it was you were doing before you looked at the email. So let's assume 5 minute per day wasted on unwanted emails. That’s 2.5 hours a month and the best part of four working days a year spent dealing with emails you don't want to get.
On the bottom of every email somewhere (they can be pretty tricky and hidden) there is an unsubscribe button. Next time you get one of these emails, make a decision about whether you want to opt out and if the answer is yes - just do it! Now you may have to persevere as they can send you round the houses a bit to successfully get unsubscribed. It will be worth it though when your inbox is mostly filled with emails you want or need to receive.
(also next time you are offered an e-receipt in a shop - don't give them your email - going through the unsubscribe process definitely makes you think twice)
A similar principle can be followed with work emails. There is a tendency these days to just 'cc everybody'. People tend to do this to make sure everyone is "kept in the loop". The reality is that most people don't read these emails - they see that it is meant for someone else in their team and skim read at best. Asking nicely not to be copied on these types of emails can help reduce the amount of time spent managing the inbox and free up more time to keep up to date on things in a way that is more effective.
Recommendation
Make Time - Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
For some stories, lessons and tips on focusing in today's world of distractions, I recommend this book.
Some of the recommendations are quite tough - like deleting all communications apps from your phone.
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