paul-kingTime Management Tips - no.4 - ditch your bad email habits
This week I want to focus on emails and why it’s a good idea to ditch that compulsive ‘empty at all times’ email habit! If you’re one of the 68% of people in the UK who check emails during their time off this habit is not only killing your productivity, it’s interrupting your social life too!
Since starting 1DayLater over a year ago I’ve learned a lot about productivity. In the same way that you would expect a ticket inspector to buy a bus ticket, you would also expect the directors of a time tracking software to know a little bit about good time management.
And by far one of the most difficult habits I’ve tried to develop is centred around emails, and avoiding a productivity-draining ‘empty at all times’ email habit.
It’s not surprising that we are all compelled to act instinctively on a new email. By nature we’ve evolved to be curious as a survival mechanism to keep an eye out for predators. Although nowadays literally getting eaten isn’t much of a concern, having our precious time gnawed away by emails is still a pain!
These compulsive habits are also no doubt why those outstanding Facebook updates maintain such a power over you. (I recently committed ‘Facebook Suicide’ to get away from this particular distraction)
Luckily there are some things we can do to stop emails interrupting our business.
Getting into some good email habits:
- Only check your emails at certain times of the day for a designated amount of time. Morning, midday and afternoon should do the trick
- Turn off email notifications in between
- Be selective about what you read - you will instinctively know which emails are the time wasting ones so try and get into the habit of simply not reading and then archiving them.
If people question why you haven’t read their emails tell them that this is your new habit. They should respect it
More hardcore phase
To take this to the next level
Only sweep emails
Only reply to urgent emails
Leave everything else (tricky at first)
The ability to work uninterrupted on tasks should have a profound effect on your productivity. Not only that, you will develop a reputation for only answering important emails (I know this is true because my brother is a true master of this habit and people have learned to send the less urgent emails to me!)
And when people stop bothering you with trivial matters you can spend more time on the things which really make a difference. Magic!
