E-mail is taking over my work life...Help! Help!
July 17, 2017 7:49 PM Subscribe
What are some hacks, books, podcasts, apps etc. that will help me get my e-mail addiction under control?
I realized that I'm spending my entire day at work answering e-mails - often e-mails that just don't need to be answered. And sometimes e-mails that are best ignored, but I answer and just cause trouble by adding my voice to the conversation. But e-mail is fantastic for procrastination and is rather addictive frankly in that it offers immediate rewards in terms of feeling productive. But I'm not being productive, as I'm ignoring the larger and more important projects, research etc that I need to be doing. What can I do?
Blogs, hacks, books, podcasts, apps, personal experiences- whatever will help me break this really bad habit is welcome. Help! Help! I feel like a prisoner to e-mail.
I realized that I'm spending my entire day at work answering e-mails - often e-mails that just don't need to be answered. And sometimes e-mails that are best ignored, but I answer and just cause trouble by adding my voice to the conversation. But e-mail is fantastic for procrastination and is rather addictive frankly in that it offers immediate rewards in terms of feeling productive. But I'm not being productive, as I'm ignoring the larger and more important projects, research etc that I need to be doing. What can I do?
Blogs, hacks, books, podcasts, apps, personal experiences- whatever will help me break this really bad habit is welcome. Help! Help! I feel like a prisoner to e-mail.
I use a chrome plugin called 'Inbox Pause' to make it so that new email only gets delivered to my account 2x/day. There are other ways of achieving this depending on what you use for email (inbox pause is for gmail), but the basic idea is the same: if the email comes on a predictable schedule, then you won't check it compulsively, looking for that hit. I also find that I interact with email differently (read: more efficiently) when I'm batch processing rather than answering it in one-off fashion.
posted by daniel striped tiger at 8:19 PM on July 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by daniel striped tiger at 8:19 PM on July 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
I used to have this problem on my cell phone, specifically with not being able to resist responding once I heard/saw a new mail notification. I turned off automatic syncing for my work email account -- I could only see new emails when I checked. If you could do that for your computer too, I think that would help. I think you should check email once in the morning at the start of your day and once toward the end of the day -- not the very end in case there's something you must get done there -- but late enough that you are closing out your day.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:58 PM on July 17, 2017
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:58 PM on July 17, 2017
I set up filters to send email directly to a folder so I can deal with a bunch on one topic at once. I also have canned emails so I can respond to common processes with minor editing rather than re-inventing the wheel everytime.
posted by b33j at 12:56 AM on July 18, 2017
posted by b33j at 12:56 AM on July 18, 2017
If unable to schedule mail delivery, another option is to at least turn off notifications. I found that when I stopped seeing an email preview pop up that I stopped getting distracted while in the middle of tasks.
Bonus is your boss, team and partners don't see potentially embarrassing email snippets if you're screen sharing your desktop.
posted by MandaSayGrr at 4:41 AM on July 18, 2017 [2 favorites]
Bonus is your boss, team and partners don't see potentially embarrassing email snippets if you're screen sharing your desktop.
posted by MandaSayGrr at 4:41 AM on July 18, 2017 [2 favorites]
If you are not required to answer an email *right now* during the course of the day, give yourself 30 minutes three times a day to check in (beginning of the day, mid-day, end of the day), and then go for a modified version of "inbox zero," where you just clean it out and get back to your 'real work."
Generally, things either can be:
ignored (thrown away)
forwarded or shared for something collaborative
stashed away
put on your to-do list and then archived (you can use a software to-do list to keep organized)
Then make sure your inbox is empty, and shut off the email client / web page.
Little is more cathartic than an emptied inbox.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 7:43 AM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Generally, things either can be:
Then make sure your inbox is empty, and shut off the email client / web page.
Little is more cathartic than an emptied inbox.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 7:43 AM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" gets a lot of shit, but it totally upended how I deal with email, in a good way.
You can read the original blog posts here, or if you have an hour, watch his talk at Google. Either way, I'll give you the TL;DR.
1. Try to touch every email only once.
2. If something needs (but only if it really needs one) a reply and you can reply now, do it now
3. Otherwise, move it somewhere out of your inbox where you will know to come back later
4. Anything that's a task, identify it as such and add it to a to-do list.
5. If you don't need to reply, or it's not a task, but you'll need it later, archive it.
6. If it's none of these things, delete it.
7. (This is the one everyone misses.) Don't actually worry about having an Empty Inbox. As long as you're not thinking about what new crap is in there, you're fine, even if there's 200 messages.
posted by SansPoint at 9:38 AM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
You can read the original blog posts here, or if you have an hour, watch his talk at Google. Either way, I'll give you the TL;DR.
1. Try to touch every email only once.
2. If something needs (but only if it really needs one) a reply and you can reply now, do it now
3. Otherwise, move it somewhere out of your inbox where you will know to come back later
4. Anything that's a task, identify it as such and add it to a to-do list.
5. If you don't need to reply, or it's not a task, but you'll need it later, archive it.
6. If it's none of these things, delete it.
7. (This is the one everyone misses.) Don't actually worry about having an Empty Inbox. As long as you're not thinking about what new crap is in there, you're fine, even if there's 200 messages.
posted by SansPoint at 9:38 AM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Inbox zero is great as a goal and as a discipline. (Provided you don't skip #7 - stressing about the emptiness is a huge waste of energy!)
If your team is doing lots of collaborating via email, you might consider a move to a project management tool. Something like basecamp or wrike allows everyone to see what is going on, assign tasks to particular people, and generally be more efficient with a group. It also cuts chatter way down and eliminates some common wastes of time and duplications of effort.
posted by Cranialtorque at 2:49 PM on July 18, 2017
If your team is doing lots of collaborating via email, you might consider a move to a project management tool. Something like basecamp or wrike allows everyone to see what is going on, assign tasks to particular people, and generally be more efficient with a group. It also cuts chatter way down and eliminates some common wastes of time and duplications of effort.
posted by Cranialtorque at 2:49 PM on July 18, 2017
This very simple advice has always stuck with me:
The Problem
E-mail takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot of it.
The Solution
Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.
five.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be five sentences or less. It’s that simple.
From: http://five.sentenc.es/
Also, I don't answer emails where I'm only cc'd.
posted by watrlily at 10:58 PM on July 18, 2017
The Problem
E-mail takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot of it.
The Solution
Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.
five.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be five sentences or less. It’s that simple.
From: http://five.sentenc.es/
Also, I don't answer emails where I'm only cc'd.
posted by watrlily at 10:58 PM on July 18, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by nickggully at 8:01 PM on July 17, 2017