Comments on: E-mail: The great time waster

By: Timothy P

Timothy P — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 06:40:07 +0000

I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment.

By: This Week’s Articles of Interest « GS Business Resources

This Week’s Articles of Interest « GS Business Resources — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:13:45 +0000

[...] this is one I really need to read often – Email the Great Time Waster. My inbox is totally out of control, and I spend far too much time checking it just in case [...]

By: Anita

Anita — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:48:10 +0000

I think email management is a big topic in any office. Where I work, I don’t have the option of only checking my email every couple of hours, unfortunately. At times I get urgent requests that need to be dealt with within the hour, while other times a coworker would send me a message and show up in my office two minutes later looking for an answer. I also don’t have the option of deleting everything I no longer need, since emails are part of corporate memory around these parts.

My system is to deal with messages as soon as they come in. Anything irrelevant gets deleted right away; things I don’t want to delete but that don’t need follow-up get filed; things that need follow-up stay in my inbox until I’ve dealt with them, then get filed. At the end of the day I also do an inbox purge, and I try to also do a general mailbox cleanup every month. It’s worked for me, and most days I manage to keep my inbox under 20 messages (not always easy…)

By: Brandy

Brandy — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:43:51 +0000

’scuse me Gumnos – email ninja! ‘control+shift+V key-chord’ I am so trying that! Is there a Gmail equivalent?

Also Erin – I like the top 3 things Idea – I am going to try that too.

For me, I need to keep my inbox(es) at zero or I miss stuff. I just cleaned out Gmail – it’s been out of control since i went on vacation. But processing them is best done intermittently. I find there are days when I need to shut Gmail and Outlook down and just focus on my work.

By: Dickies

Dickies — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:01:11 +0000

It’s always good to find like-minded people. Thanx and I’m going to add you to my RSS feed.

By: chex mix recipe

chex mix recipe — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:25:15 +0000

I heard about this, but your post is the best explanation of it. Most other blogs I have read don’t know what they are talking about. However, I must say that your blog is very informative…I am subscribing to your RSS feed right now! Thanks!

By: Gloria

Gloria — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:56:31 +0000

I hope I can actually get a chance to try these.

By: Loren

Loren — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:15:54 +0000

I’ve learned to prevent emails eating up my time by choosing not to use it as a task list! I use to use flags to try to remind myself of follow up priority, and leave emails in there that I needed to act on. Bad idea! Inevitably would forget what exactly the email was about, and i would have to reopen over and over. Now, I only read emails with subject lines that suggest i should, put tasks into Remember the Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com Awesome!), and delete it all! I totally agree with what a couple of people have said: if someone really needs me, they’ll call me!

By: Dan from Priority Management

Dan from Priority Management — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:04:03 +0000

It’s great to see so many people that have realised email is creating a challenge in their day and have taken action!

Jacque; you asked how to turn off email notifications but not miss meeting reminders. Assuming you are using MS Outlook, you can go to Tools, Options, Email Options, Advanced Email Options. Turn off the four tick boxes under “when new mail arrives…” Don’t worry; this will only affect email popups, not meeting reminders (though it’s also a good idea to use reminders sparely; don’t use your calendar as a “catch-all” for work to do, that’s what tasks are for.)

Many people are stuck in a vicious circle; they check email constantly so people people expect the to constantly check, so they constantly check…

Your behaviour drives what people expect, so start setting the expectation that you will look at mail only at set times during the day.

The key to taking control of your inbox lies in making a decision – we teach our students a process for deciding what needs to happen with each message and show how to put it in an appropriate place to manage based on its PRIOIRTY rather than the urgency perceived by the sender.

*(Did you know you can make an email into a task or appointment simply by dragging???)*

I hope this helps; I don’t want to disrespect this site’s owners by openly advertising so I won’t post our web address. Good luck everyone!

By: sylrayj

sylrayj — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:57:51 +0000

I enjoy a lot of my emails. My ISP filters out a lot of spam, and I have folders – quick sort (only takes a moment to look at them, some are kept for future entertainment), ten minutes (most of my recipe and parenting site emails, they take longer to review), individual folders for my Daily Lit emails, etc.

When it gets too grey, and I run out of any energy for anything, my ten minutes folder tends to load up. I know a few of the emails can be simply deleted because they hold links that are erased every week. Otherwise, I try to look over ‘just one more’ when I’m catching up again. Yes, it takes a while, but the recipes are mostly relevant anyway and I don’t run out of energy I can’t spare that way.

By: Bean Jones

Bean Jones — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:59:12 +0000

I use the chunking system too. I only check my mail at certain times of the day and I give myself a deadline. This way I focus only on the really important email.

I also use email filters/folders. Entourage pre-sorts my mail into folders so I tend to put off reading personal email til the end of the day and read the more urgent work stuff first thing.

By: Gumnos

Gumnos — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:14:15 +0000

@jason

The Nostalgy plugin is great…it’s even configurable so my muscle-memory can keep the same shortcuts. Thanks!

-gumnos

By: jason

jason — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:57:04 +0000

Gumnos – check out the nostalgy plugin for Thunderbird. It provides almost exactly the Ctrl-Shift-V functionality from Outlook.

By: Jacque

Jacque — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:25:02 +0000

I’d like to know how people who use Outlook turn off mail, but receive meeting alerts — I confess to being slightly dependent on them. What approaches have people taken for this problem?

Thanks!

By: Michael@ Awareness * Connection

Michael@ Awareness * Connection — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:31:25 +0000

Thanks for sharing your routine. This is certainly something that affects most of us. And it is easy to sit and check email like a rat hitting the bar in his cage for the experimenter’s sugar water. Discipline is the name of the game here. You can’t let the email set the pace.

By: Brooklynchick

Brooklynchick — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:08:03 +0000

I turned off the notification sound, fade-up, and little envelope provided by Outlook. This way, I don’t get interrupted every time an e-mail comes through. I may check more than three times a day, but a lot less than three-times per hour, my previous average!

By: Fit Bottomed Girls

Fit Bottomed Girls — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:21:36 +0000

I’ve reduced my e-mail checking to once an hour, but you guys inspire me to reduce that even further. Plus, for about half of the e-mails that I receive, I could probably walk over and talk to the recepient, as many of my e-mails come from within the office. When you’re in a cube farm with little opportunity for movement, every little bit helps!

By: Miss Julie

Miss Julie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:09:41 +0000

I’m a lawyer at a large corporation, and I check my email three times a day: once in the morning, to see if there are any meeting requests or emails from people or about projects important enough to require an immediate response; at 11 am, when I process all the email (sorting, responding, adding tasks to my task list); and once at 4 pm, when I process again. This way I respond in a timely fashion, but I’m not caught in the trap of “instant response” where people think they can go back and forth with me via email rather than pick up the phone.

By: Shanel Yang

Shanel Yang — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:02:00 +0000

In one job, I used to get 50 – 100 emails a day. And, here’s the crazy part: Almost every one of them were considered by the sender to be “urgent.” You can imagine with that many emails and that many egos, deleted any of them was not an option. So, I created as many folders and subfolders as I needed to at least store them in the order that I received them in case anyone actually needed me to recall the contents of any of them. As soon as I received one of them (I had to do it immediately b/c it was marked “urgent.”), I scanned them to be sure there wasn’t anything I needed to do about it in the near future. If there was, I printed the email, wrote notes on it about what I needed to do, and stuck it into my inbox for later if it could wait or did it immediately if it couldn’t.

Yes, that interrupted my day and took a long time in the mornings and after lunch to catch up. But, for that job, it was critical. I responded immediately to any emails from friends immediately and deleted all other non-work related group emails. Worked for me! ; )

By: Gillian

Gillian — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:58:13 +0000

I think that some people hope an e-mail will contain something to make them feel needed or a similar solution to loneliness. Even in a busy office there are lonely people.