You’ve got mail. A decade ago that would’ve brightened my day, but now my inbox is an untamed wasteland of things I need to do and junk mail I’d prefer not to sort through. I still have emails that bear the date 2005 floating around my inbox and that’s just my personal account. Have you seen the statistics for work-related inboxes? As of 2012, most people spend 28 percent of their workweek reading, organizing and responding to emails. And business users sent and received an average of 121 emails per day in 2014.
But wait, there’s more. In an effort to tame their inboxes, business professionals are doing more and more email activities outside of work. Check out these statistics from Good Technology:
- 50 percent check work emails in bed.
- 57 percent check work emails during family outings.
- 69 percent will not go to sleep until they check their work email.
- 40 percent answer work emails after 10 p.m.
- 38 percent check work emails at the dinner table.
It begs the question, do we control our inboxes or do they control us? If you find yourself spending more time than you’d like with your email, consider using some of these tips to take your relationship from crazy in love to the friend zone.
Tip #1: Disable notifications.
It’s impossible to ignore email notifications. What if it’s your boss with an important message or even better, a funny cat video? We simply can’t help ourselves. In order to increase your productivity, turn off your email notifications so you can focus on the task at hand. A case study done by Loughborough University found that it takes a third longer to complete a task when there are email interruptions. It’s simply not worth the time, especially when the email isn’t work-related. Turn off your notifications and periodically check your email throughout the day.
Tip #2: Check it when you have time.
This tip ties in directly with the first one. Far too often we check our email simply because there’s a new one, not because we actually have time to respond. Put off checking your email until you have an uninterrupted block of time. This allows you to devote your full attention to the message and respond in a thoughtful manner. The extra bonus? You’ll have less subsequent emails because you communicated everything well the first time. No more back and forth messages for you.
Tip #3: Cut the Clutter.
One of the things clogging up inboxes are daily subscription emails. Newsletters and marketing emails are great, but they take up a lot of space and time. For example, the simple act of deleting a newsletter every day for a year may add up to more than 30 wasted minutes. Consider registering for Unroll.Me using your Yahoo, Gmail or Outlook.com account. The program rolls all of your daily subscriptions into one convenient email and you have the ability to unsubscribe from each one with a simple click. Too easy.
Tip #4: Adopt an archive mentality.
Keep your inbox limited to important messages by archiving emails you don’t currently need. A good rule of thumb is that anything older than 30 days can automatically be archived. This keeps your inbox space looking tidy, but you still retain the ability to read your other emails should you need them.
Tip #5: Learn How to Search.
A study by IBM found that people who organized their emails into folders actually spent more time retrieving them than people who didn’t use folders at all. By learning how to search your regular inbox or archived messages, you save yourself not only the time it would take to search each folder, but also the time it would’ve taken to sort them in the first place.
Tip #6: Schedule future emails.
One way to clean up your inbox is to start handling response expectations. If you don’t want people to expect a 10-minute turnaround, write the email and schedule it to be sent the next day. This is also handy for those of you working from home in the evenings. Unless of course, you want your boss to expect a timely response from you at 11 p.m. In which case, ignore this tip.
Tip #7: Just Do It. This one is simple.
If you receive an email and can respond within five minutes, just do it. The same rule applies if you can delegate the email to someone else. Not your lane? Hit the forward button and don’t look back.
There you have it. Seven ways to tame your inbox and increase productivity in 2016. And if all else fails, schedule an email holiday. Take a break, mentally recharge and start fresh the next day. And don’t worry about missing something important. If it’s urgent, they’ll get in touch with you the old-fashioned way…with a phone.
