Have you ever counted how much time you spend each day dealing with e-mails? It is something you need for your work, of course, but what if you find yourself fitting the following description:
I feel uneasy. I’d better check whether I have received any e-mails. I got stuck writing an article; it’s just not happening. I’ll have a look at my e-mails. Boring phone call. Open the inbox. Waiting for the lift. I’ll check my e-mails.
Simple and omnipresent access to the Internet means that plenty of us use e-mails as something of a distraction. It gives us a false sense of responsibility – we are, after all, still working. We have to check we have not missed anything and respond on time, best of all right away.
The fact is, though, that this is a big problem. A bad habit that controls us. And then we all complain that we don’t have time for our work because of e-mails. The thing is that the ineffectiveness is not in the e-mails themselves, but in how we deal with them.
The key is to determine a specific time when we will be available for e-mails. What is more, dealing with a lot of messages at once leads to greater effectiveness than dealing with each one separately.
Try devoting 3 x 30 minutes a day to e-mails (you will gradually find out whether this is enough to deal with everything required). You will be pleasantly surprised at how much more you manage every day. If you are tempted to check your inbox outwith this time, take a deep breath and resist the temptation. Try returning your attention to the task at hand. Calm down and you will see that you are certainly missing nothing.
-th-