Source: Flickr/ Esparta
Where I work, if you were to ask a random sample of people what they were up to in a given moment, no less than half of them say “Email”. You’ve probably seen it yourself where you work. Heck, you might even spent the majority of YOUR time dealing with email.
Since neither you nor I work in email production plants, I see this as a problem. We go to work to produce things. Be it a product or a service, as engineers our job is to create, produce, and support things that will help people. So guess what? Email doesn’t help you meet that goal.
Given that email wasn’t inherently helping me move towards fulfilling my fundamental purpose for going to work, I decided to spend less time on it. A lot less time. And the results have been fantastic.
In fact, I estimate that I spend about 80% less time on email than I did this time last year. Today, I want to show you how I did it, and how you can do it too.
Strategy 1 – Close your email client
The first thing to do is to close your email client. That’s right, just close it. For most people, their email program is the first thing they open at the beginning of the day. This is a mistake, because if it’s open, it’s very tempting to go through and deal with things as they come up. This makes it a constant distraction from the real work you have to do.
If you absolutely need to have your email open throughout the day, then at least turn off the automatic notifications for every time an email pops up.
Why is this so important? In short, because of switching costs. Every time you switch from one task to another, you need to switch mental gears, so to speak. This takes time and energy, even if it doesn’t really feel like it. There’s always “ramp-up” time associated with starting a new task. So if you’re switching tasks all day, you’re pawning a lot of time in ramp-up mode that you don’t need to be. This is time that would be better spent doing real work.
Strategy 2 – Batch your email
If you’re not watching your inbox constantly anymore, you need to set aside dedicated time to deal with your it. I do this in a couple discrete periods during the day. That way, I can focus on my really work when I want to, and focus on processing email when I want to.
What I do is set aside about an hour at 10 AM and 2 PM to work my way through my inbox. I’m not focused on anything other than processing the messages I have.
Note that I’m saying I “process” the emails. I chose that word carefully, because I don’t read or respond to every single email. Instead, I use the GTD method to process everything in my inbox.
What’s the GTD method, you ask?
Strategy 3 – Use the GTD method to process your inbox
I use the GTD method to processing all of the stuff that comes my way throughout the day, and email is no exception. GTD stands for Getting Things Done, which is the name of an excellent book from David Allen. In the book, Allen suggests a method for dealing with all of the “stuff” in your life. Stuff is defined as anything that comes your way – letters, emails, phone calls, etc.
Allen suggests you either:
- Do – as in take whatever action that needs to be done, and do it now.
- Delegate – if you’re not the best person for the job, delegate to someone else
- Defer – if there’s no action needed immediately, or if it requires a substantial block of time, schedule time later to complete it.
The way I apply this to email is as follows:
- Delete all junk mail
- Go through the remaining mail and for each one decide if it’s for action, or for information. The emails for information either get filed, or deleted as I see fit.
- The remaining action emails are either dealt with immediately with a response, or put in a “Work In Progress (WIP)” folder. Items that require three minutes of effort or less get done right away. Everything else gets put in the WIP folder.
- Each item in my WIP folder gets an associated time in my day planner to deal with it, based on my availability, the task’s urgency and its importance.
Strategy 4 – Set up Filters
Take a look at the last month of email you’ve received. You’ll no doubt notice that a lot of it is repetitive, not-all-that-crititcal stuff. The office newsletter. The automatic emails from your company’s IT folks. Professional association conference announcements. You know the kind. These kinds of things are perfect candidates for filtering. They are very rarely important or urgent. You can set up filters to slide these into the trash, or in a folder for reading later when you’re bored or don’t have much to do (which happens all the time, right?).
Strategy 5 – Stop sending so many emails
Email can be a bit of a monster that you create. If you send 100 emails a day, you’re bound to get 200 back. Don’t hide behind your keyboard – there are other ways to communicate. Legend has it that back before the internet, people sometime got up from their desks, walked around, and spoke to one another. In person. Sounds dangerous, I know, but I promise it works.
Strategy 6 – [Enter Your Strategy Here]
Help out the other readers and use the comment form below and tell me about your favourite way to spend less time on email and more time working.
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I follow a similar schedule for checking my email at about 11 and 3. I find it works really well. I have found a few caveats.
1) You must communicate your email checking schedule with other people on staff clearly and tell them that if they urgently need you, to call you, don’t send an email. Since checking email is a lower priority (but the tasks inside of them may still be high priority), other methods of communication must be emphasized.
2) You will miss lots of email notices because you don’t check them at the right time. IE extra pizza is available in the lunch room or the printer is being repaired. Be prepared to miss out on some small tid bits of information.
3) Sometimes when you are focused on a project which involves lots of email communication (some people only seem to communicate through email), you may have to leave your email open. If so, filter it to show emails for just that one person or group. So when new emails come in that don’t match the filter, they are read at the normal times and your focus stays on the project at hand.
4) Sometimes when I am focused on a project and depending on when a good stopping point occurs, I adjust my checking times. So I may check at 12 or 10 instead of at 11. When I am really focused on a project, I will check only one time (gasp) per day. I have found that as long as you respond to your emails once a day, even if you say, I need more time, people understand.
5) Lots of people won’t understand why you have a process for responding to email. Don’t worry.
Hey Ryan,
Thank you so much for your feedback! I agree 100% with what you’re saying. The strategies aren’t without their drawbacks (i.e. missing free pizza), but I think most people will come out ahead overall.
I want to zero in on what you said about some projects begin very e-mail-centric. It’s true. I’m on a project right now for a client in Malaysia, with half our project team being stationed there. Given that it’s 11 time zones away, email is one of the only ways to communicate effectively. You have to judge for yourself and your situation how far to take the strategies. I think the idea of filtering out the non-project stuff so that you can focus on things that really are important and urgent.
Thanks a ton for your feedback, Ryan. I really appreciate the time you spent to share all this.
Pat
Just discovered this nifty blog and look forward to reading and learning. I am compelled, as the daughter of an English teacher and, apparently, an enthusiastic and conscientious cadet of the Internet Grammar Police force, to present a short course in latin abbreviations, namely i.e. and e.g. E.g. means “for example”. I.e. means “that is” and should be followed by a comma when used in a sentence. When presenting one or more example of a pool of possibilities, use e.g. To name the only outcome or result of a term, use i.e. Both phrases are best deployed in a parenthetical phrase, e.g. this one; i.e., ixnay the arenthesespay.
Hi Andra,
Thanks so much! I really appreciate the feedback. I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on that from here on in ;-) I definitely have a lot to learn in terms of my writing, so every little bit helps.
Pat
Nice one. I batch as well and work it around peak work zones. Not using reply all will help as well.
Not using reply all is crucial. I’d be happy to see that button removed from email clients altogether ;-)