Email II

In the last post, I explored some of the underlying dynamics that are a likely culprit / source of our trouble with email. Today, I will further develop this theme and offer a set of practical solutions that have worked for me.

One important angle to the email trap is that promptly answering (all?!) emails feels good for a quick moment because we take it as a sign of how kind and engaged we are. Unfortunately, by replying to all emails (for many years my Sunday afternoon activity), you are soliciting the next volley of emails. You can get easily swept up by those dynamics. All humans crave in one or the other way for a feeling of belonging and of purpose. Creating an internal model in which we are inundated with emails that require our attention gives us the feeling that we are important and thus live a life of purpose. Replying to every message as fast as possible is giving us the feeling that we are connected and part of a social network. Yet, these positive emotions are not sustained in this process. Rather we increasingly loose our internal agency by replacing it with an external agency. We rely on what others drop into our inbox and pay with a lack of time and focus for the important priorities in our lives. As a result, we are getting more stressed and less happy, with the consequence that we are even less like to succeed with a more rational approach that requires more of our prefrontal cortex.

Somebody must stop this. Here is the system that I have developed. Give it a try and let me know how it goes by leaving a comment below.
 

• It is important that you process your emails in blocks. Decide ahead of time what your email slots are and only work on your emails in these slots. For many of us, a morning and afternoon slot is more than enough. With this system, you will accelerate your career since you will have much more time to work on the truly important items.
• Make sure that the key people in your life who may need your attention more urgently, let’s say your family, your boss, and your mentor have you cell phone number. Tell them to feel free to text or call when they have something urgent for you.
• Before you open your inbox, review your written big goals (more on that in a later post) and make sure you have internalized them. This is an important step since it helps you make good decisions about which emails are important to you.
• Open your inbox, start with the newest messages. Go message by message and make an immediate decision on all messages. For every message, you have three options to choose.
  1. Delete (and unsubscribe if applicable). This should be the default option for the majority of messages you received. Do not be afraid, keep on deleting as many as you can.
  2. Important to you and can be dealt with in less than 60 seconds. Do so immediately and archive the message when done.
  3. Move out of your inbox onto your to-list. This option should be reserved for truly important messages that will help you reach your goals.

 
Bonus tips:

• If things are getting overwhelming, empower yourself to declare email bankruptcy by deleting all the message in your inbox. You will be surprised by how few will follow up or are offended that you did not reply to the message.
• Unsubscribe from all the marketing emails that you receive. Yes, this takes ten seconds for each email, but it will really help with keeping email clutter low. Stop signing up for new email lists, they are almost never worth your attention. Rather buy a book on the topic of interest.
• Never apologize for “the delay in my answer.”
• Stop right now today the use of the silly lie of “just found it in my spam filter”, even if it is true.
• Turn off email notifications on your mobile devices.
• Resolve important things in person or by phone. Let unimportant things be instead of sending an email.