Do email just once per day
Productivity tip: only check email once a day. This cuts down on distractions throughout the day; saves a lot of wasted time that’s generated by replying to emails and getting even more emails during the course of the day; and allows you to focus on your stuff, not other people’s requests.
If you’re concerned people you work with will complain that you don’t get to emails quickly enough, try checking around midday every day. That gives morning emailers – often the most gung-ho ones – the sense you’re responding in a timely fashion. Since afternoons are when people are most likely to leave early for appointments, or be busy doing the work that piled up that morning, the expectation of a quick response is less on afternoon emails than morning.
If even that’s not enough – if you’re in an environment where you’re supposed to answer emails more quickly than that – try doing it just twice or three times a day. Anything to put yourself in control instead of those little Outlook popups that demand you drop what you’re doing and go read someone’s latest chain mail forward right now.
The feeling of control – of not being at the beck and call of a little popup window – is worth a lot on its own, even if it doesn’t seem to save you much time. It’ll save you sanity.
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