I bet you dread the thought of opening your inbox each morning, anxiously guessing how high the number of messages has risen since you last checked. I also bet you open your inbox several times an hour, despite that dread and anxiety from email overwhelm. Most US professionals check every 37 minutes during the work day. Email management is indeed a learned skill and many professionals have not slowed down long enough to explore how to speed up the process for themselves.
It’s a textbook, love-hate relationship. Can’t live with it; can’t live without it.
Since email is here to stay (at least for the foreseeable future), here are four strategies my clients and I have personally found to be powerful and effective, leading us to no longer dread the inbox, and dare I say occasionally even feel a slight twinge of excitement when we open our email.
1. Stop “checking” your Inbox.
I know, you might argue it is simply a matter of semantics, but hear me out. When you “check” your inbox, what you are really doing is quickly glancing at the contents, scanning for anticipated messages – or those that pique your interest – then realizing how much time it is going to take you later when you will actually read, respond and process all of those messages. “Checking” does little more than give you a hit of dopamine (the feel-good brain chemical) &/or cortisol (the stress hormone) and distract you from the more pertinent and purposeful task you should have been focusing on. Stop CHECKING your inbox and start scheduling two or three 30-minute time blocks for PROCESSING your messages each day.
2. Take inventory then decisively unsubscribe.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your inbox, it’s time to take inventory. Unsubscribe from all newsletters, retail store lists, and other generic communication you don’t consistently open, read and take action upon. You can always resubscribe later if you find that you are missing something (pro tip: you are going to realize you are not missing anything important!) Then, take a look at what’s left and see what can bypass the inbox and be filtered into folders that you can review at your convenience once a week/month.
3. Integrate your Inbox with a task management tool or system.
Using a task management tool along with your inbox is a 2-step system that will help you quickly turn emails into action items. Your inbox is not meant to serve as another digital to-do list. When you can have all of your tasks in one place, you eliminate the risk of overlooking important tasks or forgetting to complete them simply because they fell “below the fold” in your inbox. Apps and tools such as Asana, Trello, and Todoist integrate very nicely with both Gmail and Outlook email platforms.
4. Consider using an alternative communication tool for internal correspondence.
When it comes to communication within your company, explore options that will keep you and your teammates out of the inbox. Countless tools (think: Slack or Microsoft Teams) allow for both synchronous and asynchronous communication, which are much more conducive for collaboration and sharing of resources, files, real-time updates and secure information. Most employees received 120 emails a day; imagine how many of those could be eliminated by communicating internally via an alternative tool?
While your relationship with the inbox may never reach the status of true love, test out these strategies and see if you too can eliminate your email overwhelm. I you need additional support and strategies, let’s connect!
Recent Comments