5 Rules to Avoiding Email Overload
January 25, 2008 by Phil Gerbyshak
Filed under Business
This is a guest article from Ted Demopoulos
We all get email, too much email. Remember when getting an email was exciting? Well, oceanfront property used to be cheap too.
Remember the AOL “You’ve Got Mail” voice announcement, as though it was a noteworthy event?
Email, big virtual piles of it, may be the norm today, but you can’t let it drive your life!
Here are five simple rules to help avoid email overload.
1) Always place time limits on email.
I’ll often read email before I go to work for a few minutes, maybe a half hour right before lunch, an hour late in the afternoon and perhaps a late evening check before bed in case there is anything important.
Before, during, and after work – isn’t that enough?
Do NOT read every email as it comes in! Unless of course, you are already procrastinating.
2) When in doubt, throw it out
There is no rule that you must respond or even read all your email. Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day. That’s simply reality.
I try to read most of my email, but when it’s from unknown people, and the subject line isn’t enticing, it may get thrown out.
If someone I don’t know wants something, and this happens several times a day, unless they address me by name, it doesn’t get read. I do not respond to “Dear Webmaster” or “Fellow Blogger” or anything remotely similar.
I don’t read press releases or ezines I don’t recognize or anything in all CAPITALS. Sometimes I don’t even read ezines I subscribe to and enjoy.
Even inane emails from friends get ignored when I’m busy, even though I send friends lots of silly emails!
This may sound somewhat heartless, but most polite emails even from people I don’t know do get an answer. I answer at least 20-30 polite, personal emails from people I’ve never heard of each week.
3) Remember that email is not the right medium for all communications
You don’t have to answer emails via email.
I respond to some emails with the two-word phrase “call me” and then delete the email.
Sometimes I’ll respond with “discuss at lunch tomorrow” or similar and then delete the email.
Often a two minute phone call or a 3 minute in-person chat handles what would otherwise be a 10-20 minute + email response.
As a general rule of thumb, if a response to an email needs to be longer than the email itself, email is not the right medium!
4) Respond to email during down time
I respond to a lot of email while driving the car – via my cell phone. I answered emails today while I was waiting for my car oil and filter to be changed. Yesterday I answered email for 20 minutes while waiting for a colleague at the local coffee joint. I answer a lot of email, although admittedly while offline, when flying.
Now I’m just as likely to use this downtime for something else productive, like reading a book, engaging in deep thought, or napping, but often I’ll whittle away at my inbox a bit.
5) Don’t use email to procrastinate
If you’ve got work to do, and who doesn’t, don’t use dealing with email as an excuse to procrastinate! It’s easy to do, but email is rarely “real work.”
Email will consume all your time and life if you let it — so don’t let it.
My name is Ted Demopoulos, and I’m an email junkie, but I’ve got it under control! Really I do, trust me.
Ted Demopoulos received his first email in 1979 — before the term email was even coined. He is author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting, Blogging for Business, Effective Internet Presence and a bunch of other stuff too. He can be found at www.EffectiveInternetPresence.com and lives on the Internet with his wife, 3 kids, and dog.
Ted,
How involved you are with your email depends upon your job duties. If people need access to you 24/7 then you will be checking your email all the time. If you are only needed 8-10 hours during the day, then it makes no nense to be checking your work emails late into the evening.
I have an issue with getting emails from magazines and others that have placed me on their list because I signed up for a webinar or something similar. It causes me to hit the delete button more than I wish, but what am I to do.
I like your comments about responding back with a couple of words and then deleting the email entirely. It makes sense. Sometimes it seems that we are sucked into a situation where we should probably do just that, but instead we reply back and start a viscious cycle of non-effective replies that just seems to waste time or drag on into disruptive feelings.
None of us want to become a slave to our emails, just like some people are slaves to their texting on their phones. What a waste! How much of the texting is really necessary? How much of the emails we receive, both at work and on our personal email addresses, are necessary as well?
Alan,
Thanks for your comments.Your are absolutely right that some of us have job functions that require checking email more often, sometimes in almost ‘real-time.’
What can (sometimes) work in these situations is having another email, perhaps we can call it an “on call” or “support” email, which we check much more often.
I like the follow quote from Michael Port’s soon to be released book, “Beyond Booked Solid” — Email is a tool, not an obligation!
These are all excellent points, especially the point about using the correct medium. I know I’ve made the mistake of spending 20+ minutes trying to craft the perfect response to a difficult email, giving up and calling the person and finding the issue resolved in a couple minutes. I never thought of asking them to call me though; thats an excellent way of putting the ball back in the senders court and will help evaluate how important the issue is.
One tricks thats helped me “delete” email is actually a “todelete” folder. If something isn’t obviously junk then I’ll move it to there instead of deleting. This helps me psychologically, and in the rare event that I find out later it was important I can pull it out and read it.
Alan, for those who think that they “need” to be available all the time on email I like to ask them what would happen if they were in a meeting, sleeping, or flying? In almost all cases they will admit that the world won’t come crashing down, so taking a 2 hour break from email at work isn’t too bad. Plus it can almost always make the person more effective which will be noticed.
Now, back to my email…
Good tips for email. I’m amazed how many people think they have to deal with email before they get working on their number one priorities. This is CRAZY! Very few jobs have email as a priority and so it should always come after time spent on your top priorities.
Good points!
I adopted zero inbox practice. That does not mean I read each and every mail until my inbox is clean. I actually never read it. I scan the inbox moving emails either to trash or knowledge base folder, or dedicated action items folder. I allocate dedicated time for the action items folder and process emails which are usually tasks requested by my manager, customers, reports, or family members. Seems like it maps to your #1 “Always place time limits on email.”
I’d also ad #6 – turn off any email notification – notification balloons, taskbar icons, and sound notification. Reduces distraction dramatically
Brad,
I think I’m going to rename my “temp” folder to “to delete” — great tip
Mike,
True, for most people, email is not the #1 priority. Unfortunately, emails may directkly relate to your top priorities which certainly muddies the water. I tell my clients that the phone works very well, especially when urgent.
I rerouted my biz phone to my cell yesterday while I was skiing with my kids. I didn’t answer most calls, but did pick one up from a client whose number registered. They had a 20 second question, and thought it was cool I was answering from a chairlift, and they probably felt pretty important too. Their email? Just saw it this morning . . .
Alik, I have email notification periodically on or off — usually off so I avoid email distractions more easily
Ted,
While email may directly relate to your top priorities, email is not the right medium to use for urgent work. Everyone always has things already on the list that need to be done, even if it IS related your top priority, so its better to focus on those planned elements to complete them first, then address emails on a daily or twice daily basis to re-adjust lower priority activities for later that day or the next day.
Mike,
You state “email is not the right medium to use for urgent work,” and although I agree, not everyone does. And when a paying client sends me an urgent email, they expect me to see it fairly quickly.
Now my clients learn pretty quickly how to effectively work with me, just as I learn how to effectively work with them, but different people have different expectations about email.
Good point Ted. Working in a technology company, I just assume there are other ways to escalate and bring up urgent things. It could be as simple as keywords, urgent messages in email, or specific customers automatically forwarding to a separate priority account or other service for dial-up or text messaging. Either way, its still not the right medium for urgent messages. Its a companies responsibility to find ways to use it effectively with their customers and put in place the proper systems so it isn’t costing the organization more than its earning.
Ted,
Interesting article and great comments.
At one stage i had an auto-responder on my email that read “I don’t answer emails after 10:00. If you didn’t get a reply to your email, consider it deleted. If you need a reply email me again”.
I’d come to work, spend 2 hours on email, and what ever I didn’t manage to complete, I’d delete. It worked great and I managed to get a lot done. However, circumstances changed, and I’m unable to take such an extreme approach any more. I use an outlook Add on called MoveIT. Helps me manage my inbox and keep it completely uncluttered. I Probably save 1 hour a day using it.
Interesting approach Amir!
An extreme approach like that wouldn’t work for me — it would simply alienate clients today.
Hmmm, haven’t heard of MoveIT before. I’m going to go and goggle it now
Ted,
Try google “moveit email overload” or look directly at their website http://www.bluelightit.com/moveit
disclaimer: I have applied for a job there.
PLeas PLease send me as many junk mail as you can. i want to see if it will overload! joshuavillegas@ymail.com