Email is Killing Your Productivity
Are you struggling to get everything done in your day? Have you ever finished working for the day and found yourself wondering, “What the hell did I get done today??” I’m going to let you in on a little secret: the issue may be your email. While I’ll admit there are probably other factors that are contributing to the problem, email is one of the biggest culprits of wasted time.
Adobe, the software company, surveyed 1,000 workers in the US as part of its annual study on email use. Guess what they found? Are you ready for this? Americans spend, on average, more than five hours per day checking email. In fact it’s actually closer to six hours a day: five hours and 52 minutes, to be exact. Now, that number includes time spent checking both personal and work email, but the number remains staggering. I don’t know about you, but I have very little desire to spend that amount of time scrolling through my inbox.
Now, don’t get me wrong. For most of us, email is a necessary evil. It’s the way we communicate with our boss, clients, colleagues, etc. We can’t just take it upon ourselves to ignore our email. Well, we could, but it’s likely that wouldn’t end well for us. What we can do, though, is put some strategies in place to help us spend less time checking email and more time engaged in tasks that feel more worthwhile. Here are 5 simple yet effective strategies to consider implementing:
Schedule time to check your email. I have started putting “check email” on my daily calendar to help me avoid the impulsive signing in or the mindless scrolling on my Gmail app. Instead, I have scheduled time in the morning, mid-day, and late afternoon to log in, read emails, and respond as needed. Depending on your work setting, you may not have the liberty to do this. Email may be the way that you stay in contact with your boss or coworkers throughout the day. I would challenge you to set up some level of boundaries when it comes to email. Maybe three times a day is simply not enough, but do you really need to be interrupting that report you’re writing to open your inbox yet again and read all of the latest emails that have come your way? If the answer is no, then don’t.
On a related note, be mindful about when you check your email. If you know that email sucks you in for quite some time, does it make sense to check it first thing in the morning? It might be more beneficial to accomplish one or two tasks before diving down that email rabbit hole. And here’s a new rule I am working hard to implement: I don’t open an email unless I am prepared to respond. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened an email on my phone while holding a child on one hip and stirring pancake batter with my free hand. Nine times out of ten, do you know what happens? I have to put the phone down without replying. And do you know what happens after that?? I forget about the email until two days later around 3 in the morning. Then I have to go back and re-read the email (so now I’ve spent double the time on this, mind you, along with a restless night’s sleep), apologize for my delayed response, and eat humble pie.
Set screen time limits on your phone. To help me stick to my guns when it comes to spending less time on email, I have set screen time limits on my iphone. I would imagine there are various ways to do this, depending on what exactly you want to limit and which type of device you’re using. Here’s what you can do on your iphone: go to “Settings,” then “Screen Time,” then “App Limits.” There, you can add a limit for all of the different apps on your phone. I have created screen time limits for my Mail app, Facebook, and Instagram. This was instrumental in preventing me from compulsively opening the Mail app on my phone just out of pure habit!
Speaking of app limits, you might also consider changing the notifications on your devices. When I first started using a new laptop, it was preset to notify me any time an email came through. Needless to say, this was distracting and annoying!! And since research indicates that it takes our brain up to 15 minutes to get back on track after we’ve been interrupted, I quickly modified my settings so that I am only notified about new emails when I open the Mail application. I’ve done the same thing on my iphone so that I can avoid that nagging red dot that tricks me into feeling a sense of urgency to open my emails.