For many of us, email swallows up a significant percentage of our workday. Reading email takes time. Replying to email takes time. Managing an email inbox takes time. My stomach sinks when I open my email and it fills up with 50 new emails. How does that happen?! Using RescueTime, I have determined that I often spend 30% or more of my day on email. Yikes. Fortunately, there are easy ways to significantly ease the burden of email and save time in your day.
Starting Point: Email Filters
One of the best features of email applications for efficiency is usually referred to as “Filters" or “Rules,” depending on the application or platform you use to access your email. This feature allows you to automatically apply actions to an email message when it meets a certain criteria that you set. There are countless ways to use this tool. For instance, you can:
- Set all emails sent from your boss to be automatically moved into a subfolder of your choosing.
- Set every email containing your name to be highlighted or starred so that you know you should pay attention to it.
- Delete all messages from a certain sender
While I use this feature in a lot of ways, I especially love to use Filters or Rules for managing listservs or mailing lists. I’m on many listservs and, while occasionally there is an email that is relevant to me, most messages do not require my attention or reply. This is a perfect use for Filters. I create a subfolder for these specific listserv emails. Then, I set up a Rule or Filter that moves all messages from the listserv into the subfolder UNLESS:
- My name is mentioned in body of the email
- The email is sent directly “To” or “CC’d” to my email address (versus the address of the listserv)
Voila. From now on, 90%+ of those listserv emails are blissfully removed from sight automatically. Repeat for other listservs as desired. One of the nice benefits of this technique is that the emails are still accessible -- A Filter or Rule simply moves the message to the folder of your choosing. If you choose, you can open the subfolder and read any filtered messages at your convenience. Upon first implementing a new Filter or Rule, make sure it is behaving properly by checking that email is being routed appropriately.
Unsubscribe from Mass Advertisements and Mailing Lists You Didn’t Sign Up For / Don’t get value from
It’s amazing how much email is sent every day. The sad part is that most of it is mass advertisements and spam. With the advent of the internet, email has become the cheapest and easiest way for marketers to reach millions of individuals almost effortlessly. Everyone from department stores to dental offices to the neighborhood landscaper is sending emails these days. Sometimes, it’s not even clear why you are receiving the email in the first place! So:
Unless you get some sort of value from a mailing list, unsubscribe from it.
We receive so many of these mass marketing emails that we have gotten used to seeing and deleting them, often without reading them. While we do this process repeatedly without much thought or effort, I am still astounded that more people do not take advantage of the “Unsubscribe” button at the bottom of most mass emails. A few seconds deleting emails adds up to a few minutes. Soon, we’re spending hours of our precious lives deleting useless emails! It took me years before I finally realized I wasn’t gaining any real value from the multiple department store ads and various newsletters I received every week. Not only did unsubscribing save me time and energy, it also offered psychological benefits. Having a tidy email account is like having a tidy house — it’s more manageable and easier to enjoy. Seeing less new emails in my inbox every time I open my email lessens the stress accompanied with checking email. Action for the next 7 days: As you check your email, stall your reactive habit and don’t automatically delete anything! First, think about each email you receive. How much value have you have gotten out of it?
- The past month?
- 6 months?
- Year?
If the answer is little to none, scroll down and click unsubscribe. While you think you might “miss out” on some great sale or new development, you’ll find that the time and energy savings is worth it. If you still occasionally want the information, you can visit the company website or social media accounts to access most, if not all, of the same information. If there are still emails you can’t bear unsubscribing to (possibly for email coupons or other savings), another option is to use a Filter or Rule to move the email to a subfolder or to “Mark a Message as Read” so the email doesn’t show up as a new, unread message. I did this with my 'Bed, Bath and Beyond’ mailing list because I like the occasional "20% off" discount coupons that come via email. While I still receive the messages, they don’t appear in my Inbox, but are available when I want to use them. While not every mass email list will have an "Unsubscribe" option, it is (technically) legally required, and most legitimate businesses will include the option. Look for it — it is a key to less email clutter!
Batch Check Your Email
Email is one of the most distracting things on the planet. It is one of the few icons on my phone I will tap subconsciously -- especially when procrastinating. Further, it is becoming even more intrusive on our phones and computers, with sound effects and pop-up notifications as new messages come in at real-time. How are we supposed to EVER focus on anything else? Fortunately, there are a few easy steps to take control. (Pop-up notifications...Sound effects...Even the little number that appears over the email icon that indicates how many new messages we have; Email is one of the most distracting things on the planet.) First things first:
Turn off ALL sounds, popup/push notifications and numbers
This is the single best thing you can do for your sanity. Go into the email settings on all of your devices (laptop, cell phone, tablet) and turn off new email sounds, popup notifications and any other functionalities that are similarly intrusive. If you can, even disable the little number that appears over top of your email icon (the one that indicates number of new messages). All of these notification tools break concentration when you’re focused on a task and serve as distractions when you are procrastinating.
Check your email at set times or intervals during the day
While it’s convenient for most folks to keep their email open on the computer screen, it is also ineffective for maintaining a mental focus on getting things done. With email looming in the background, important tasks can be interrupted by the nervous habit of clicking onto your email. It’s such a habit that you will do it without even thinking about it! Unless the fate of the company is in your hands, there’s no reason to let email distract you from getting important projects done. In reality, nearly 100% of what’s in your email can wait multiple hours, if not till the next day, for a reply. Anything incredibly urgent (rare) will find it’s way to you some other way, whether it’s with a phone call or knock on your office door. A better use of your time is to focus on projects with occasional breaks to check email at predefined intervals. Further, many time management professionals, myself included, suggest you shouldn’t start your day with checking your email. Instead, set a schedule and stick to it. Start with checking and responding to email every two hours beginning at 10:00am (adjust accordingly if you are not working 9:00pm to 5:00pm slot.) So, shoot for:
- 10:00am
- 12:00pm
- 2:00pm
- 4:00pm
If you can’t break the habit of clicking on your email application on your computer, there are two options:
- Easy and preferred: Exit your email completely and re-open it only at the scheduled times above.
- Less easy but also effective: Set your email to only check for new messages every 120 minutes or when you manually click the check for mail button.
I recommend option 1. It’s more predictable and takes less effort. If you’re waiting for an important email or reply, you want your email to be updating more frequently (every 5 or 10 minutes is the typical default setting on desktop computers) and you’ll also exert more effort and concentration than you think manually checking for new messages.
Checking Email on Nights and Weekends - The Rule of Thumb that has changed my life.
Technology is continually being designed to keep us more and more connected and "in the loop." While this is great in some ways, it means our phones are buzzing all day and night long with phone calls, emails, text messages, social media notifications and so on. The rule of thumb that has changed my life is simple: Don’t check your email unless you’re willing to take action on the emails immediately. Specifically, if you don’t have the physical ability or mental capacity to actually reply to emails or “fix” any “really important” problems that have come up since you last checked your email, don’t check your email. This is almost always the case while you are away from your home or office and on your cell phone. Checking your email is like letting the elephant in the room — Your email will then loom over you psychologically. You can’t un-see what you’ve already seen. Have you ever made the mistake of checking your email after work while away from your computer? Or right before going to sleep? It can and will inhibit your ability to relax and enjoy your time away from work. I’ve encountered very few emails that ever truly need a reply at 10:00pm at night. Even if it seems like your reply can’t possible wait, in all likelihood, it can wait till at least the next day. And if it can’t, you’d better be getting paid to work 24/7. But that’s not the goal, is it?
Personal Email
Unless you receive a lot of junk mail (which you should have unsubscribed from by now) or you use your personal email for business purposes, your personal email account should usually be a more enjoyable experience than your work email. For me personally, I have two personal email accounts. One of them is used exclusively for signing up and signing into various websites that require an email address. The other is used for strictly personal email with close friends. I don’t mind checking either account. However, I only check these accounts once per weekday and never on the weekends. Why? 1. There’s never anything pressing that can’t wait till the next business day. Personal email is understood to be a slower medium than others for communication. Friends will call or text me directly if anything important comes up. 2. More importantly, checking even a personal email account is a gateway to checking all of your email accounts. If you have your email accounts configured on your phone, checking one account will also update the new email on all of your accounts. Now, you’ll see messages pile up in your work account — for some reason, your colleagues are on email all hours of the day it seems — and your head will now have a mental inventory of your unread email itching away in your brain. You can’t un-see what you have seen. Not good.
Managing the Inbox
Everyone has different methods of managing their inbox. For better or worse, this can include never deleting any messages from the inbox to striving to have absolutely no messages in the inbox. In my personal experience, I tend to fall into the habit of deleting most messages — maybe 90% — but leaving the 10% that involve to-do tasks or important information that I know I will need within the next few weeks. For these reasons, I strive for having 0 messages in my inbox but rarely achieve this. There are a couple techniques time and energy management professionals recommend. In his book, Getting Things Done, time management professional David Allen describes a process of handling emails immediately as they come in. He refers to four “D” words. I will list them in order of usefulness and describe them in the ways I have found most useful:
Delete It
Do it
Defer It (File it)
Delegate It
Delete it - If an email doesn’t require any reply or action on your part, delete it. With the amount of spam email and mailing lists that you may be required to be on at work, there’s a good chance that 80 to 90% of all emails fall into the “Delete it" category. Exercise the “Delete it” option liberally. If there’s useful information or information you might need in the future, plan to Defer it or File it.
Defer it or File it - Deferring tasks is one of the most effective techniques in the workplace. In most jobs, you won’t have enough time to accomplish everything you are asked. You need to defer tasks routinely to focus on actually getting things done. As a result, keeping track of tasks and prioritizing them is one of the most important things to do. If an email doesn’t contain a matter that requires immediate action, it can be deferred.
Do it - If an email arrives that can be dealt with in 2 minutes or less, do it right then and there and get it out of your inbox. While it can be tempting to skip ahead and plan to come back to emails there are multiple benefits to the “Do it” strategy:
- Energy and time savings - you don’t have to return to the email and re-read it. You could be practically done it in the time it takes you to later come back and re-read it. Transitioning from one task (or email) to another is one of the biggest consumers of time and mental energy.
- Less email accumulates in your inbox
- Saves inbox anxiety - that is, knowing there are unanswered emails accumulating with new email continuously arriving.
- Faster response for the person who emailed you
Delegate it - If a reply or task can be done by someone else, pass it off to them. The idea of delegating assumes you have an assistant, coworker or staff member who is able and appropriate for handling the particular reply or task. If you have this option, definitely take advantage of it. It’s important to not feel that you must handle and micromanage every single email yourself. Delegating a task means time and energy savings for you and a sense of purpose and motivation for whoever you pass the task. If you’re like the rest of us and don’t have the option to delegate, I believe the idea of delegation still has valid applications in a slightly different form. If you have to do a task that a co-worker or acquaintance might know more about than you do, it’s perfectly reasonable and very effective to ask for advice or assistance from this person. In this way, you are delegating a portion of the decision making and skill to someone who can help you find the best route or means to complete a task. As someone who works in computer technology, there are endless challenges and niche areas of expertise. I’ve relied on others inside and outside of my own company for advice and help. In almost all cases, I learn a lot in the process, get the task done faster and develop a good working relationship with others in the process. Don’t overuse this technique — Everyone is extremely busy with their own responsibilities and challenges — but use it when you recognize you can benefit from:
- the time savings
- the energy savings
- the opportunity to learn something useful
- the opportunity to develop a relationship with a coworker
The process of Deleting it, Deferring it, Doing it, or Deleting it will become second nature with practice. I haven’t explicitly thought about the actual process in years, but I use it every day subconsciously. Once you’re in the habit, you’ll speed through email more efficiently than ever.
A technique for Deffering Email
When you defer an email, it is important to keep track of it so you can come back to it at the proper time. There are multiple techniques for doing this. Despite my own advice, I have the tendency to leave emails that I am deferring in my inbox, and routinely come back and scan my entire inbox a couple times every week. However, some professionals suggest that it is much more beneficial (for your mental well-being) to keep your inbox at 0 messages whenever possible. They argue that having email in you inbox leaves you in an always uneasy, unfinished state. This is where having subfolders for filing your email come in handy. There are two useful ways to use subfolders that I would recommend for keeping track of your deferred email, but feel free to adapt, experiment or develop your own system.
1. Time based: Create 4 subfolders labeled in order of time sensitivity
- Today / ASAP
- This Week
- This Month
- Some Day
2. Priority based: Create 3 subfolders labeled in order of urgency or priority
- ASAP
- Less Urgent
- Not Urgent
As you receive new emails that require your action, file them immediately into the appropriate folder and visit these folders at the appropriate frequency. I also recommend creating an additional email folder called “Waiting on Others”. This folder is used for storing email that you have asked for input, clarification or assistance with from someone else. Any emails stored here serve as a reminder for you that you are waiting on someone else’s reply to proceed. This is extremely helpful because of how busy other people are and how easy it is to forget that you emailed someone about something. It’s not always
Writing Email Smartly (How to save yourself a ton of time when you have to write email)
A trick that has saved me countless hours of email time and energy is writing emails with if / then statements.
If / then statements are often used in computer programming. It is a simple series of statements that define possible conditions and what to do when each of them are true. For instance, IF a user enters their correct user name and password, THEN log them into their account. IF a user enters the incorrect user name and password, THEN prompt them to re-enter their password. If / Then statements often accommodate any possible condition of a given situation. In other words, if / then statements are typically catch-alls, and will provide an action to take for any possible outcome.
These types of statements can be extremely useful, outside of computer programming, when applied to email writing because they can eliminate the number of back and forth emails you send. For instance, imagine someone emails you asking for helping because they can’t log into their account. It might go something like this:
Email 1 - 9:45am
Other person: Hi — I can’t log into my account. What should I do?
You: Are you sure you typed your username and password correctly? Is your Caps Lock on?
Email 2 - 10:30am
Other person: Thanks but I tried a hundred times but I still can’t log in. I’m getting desperate. I might drink the leftover eggnog from the holiday party.
You: Weird. Can you try reseting your password using the “reset password” link on the log-in page?
Email 3 - 12:05pm
Other person: Great idea! I just tried it and it asked me for my mother’s maiden name and I don’t remember what it is. Can you please help? I really need this to work.
You: ...
This whole exchange could be significantly reduced using if / then statements. Imagine this instead:
Email 1 - 9:45am
Other person: Hi — I can’t log into my account. What should I do?
You: Hi — Did you try all of your possible passwords? Is your Caps Lock on? If that doesn’t solve the problem, then try resetting your password using the “reset password” link on the log-in page. If you’re still having trouble, then call our server admin at 1-800-dont-call-this and he should be to help you. Hope this helps. Let me know if these steps don’t work out. Thanks!
As this example demonstrates, the use of If / Then statements can eliminate multiple email exchanges all at one time. This has clear time saving benefits but also offers significant mental energy savings — it saves you from having to think about a particular topic more than once. Whether they realize it or not, you also tend to provide the same benefits to the person you are interacting with.
Email Scheduling
Some email platforms offer the neat ability to schedule email delivery. So, for instance, you can schedule an email to be delivered at a later point in time or even on an ongoing reoccurring basis (e.g. every Friday at Noon). Some time and stress management professionals recommend using this tool to improve your workflow. For instance:
Example 1: Rather than reminding employees to submit their timesheets every Friday, set up a reoccurring email reminder that is automatically sent out at 12 Noon on Friday.
Example 2: Rather than get a reply to an email you have written near the end of the day, schedule the email to send at 5:00pm so you leave work with a clear head (before you get a reply).
In my experience, Example 1 has good applications; There is no reason to not task a computer with simple, repetitive things to do. However, I have found Example 2 to have potential shortcomings. There have been times when things happen between the time I compose an email and the time I have scheduled the email to be delivered. For instance:
- Somebody on the email thread has replied and changed the direction or nature of the email. Now, the email I have written is outdated or seems off-base.
- An “emergency" email has arrived in my inbox that involves some or all of the same people and I do not respond to it, despite responding to the other email. Now, I look like a jerk.
For these reasons, I have largely avoided using email delay tools, but they may be more successful or applicable for other people. Use your discretion.
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