Are You on E-mail Overload?

A number of recent magazine and newspaper articles have focused on overworked professionals declaring e-mail “bankruptcy” – swearing off e-mail entirely or, more commonly, deleting all old messages and starting fresh.

While it’s probably not practical (or advisable) to take this approach in the public sector, it really points out what a time hog e-mail can be. More and more, e-mail overload gives many workers the sense that their work is never done.

These quick tips – found on an Internet blog – might help you get your inbox under control so you don’t have to resort to bankruptcy!

• Shut off the auto-check feature. It’s probably a good idea to either turn off automatic checking completely or set it to something reasonable. And disable those “pop-up” messages signaling that you’ve gotten a new e-mail. Rather than letting e-mail messages interrupt your other work, just check for new messages every few hours or so.
• Pick off easy ones. If you can retire an e-mail with a one or two-line response (in just a couple of minutes or less), do it now. Get it off your plate and get back to work.
• Write less. Stop imagining that all your e-mails need to be epic literature; get better at just keeping the conversation moving by responding quickly and with short actions in the reply. Ask for more information, pose a question, or just say “I don’t know.” This does not mean that you should bypass standard grammar, capitalization, and punctuation – just that your well-written message can and should be as concise as possible. That saves everyone time.
• Be honest. If you know in your heart that you’re never going to respond to an email, get it out of sight, archive it, or just delete it. Guilt will not make you more responsive two months from now, otherwise, you’d just do it now, right? Trust your instincts, listen to them, and stop trying to be perfect.

 
[ previous article ]  [ return to top ]  [ next article ]