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5 Ways to Take Control of Your Email Habit

You are here: Home / Outlook / 5 Ways to Take Control of Your Email Habit
5 Ways to Take Control of Your Email Habit
August 18, 2010 by Mynda Treacy

Do you check your email first thing in the morning and then allow email to become your To-Do List?  At the end of the day do you feel like you haven’t accomplished as much as you’d like?  Does your email dictate what takes priority?

On average an email takes 2.75 minutes to process.  Obviously some will be deleted right away and others will have time dedicated for a reply or other action.  So if you’re receiving 42 emails a day (which is the average), that’s about 2 hours a day spent on email alone.  Go ahead and work out your average email habit per day.

To put email into perspective let me share some facts with you:

  • Emails aren’t urgent.  If it was urgent they would call you.
  • The more emails you send, the more you will receive.

If you use the techniques I’m about to share with you, you’ll be able to reduce your email habit by at least 50% per day.  That’s an hour of time saved per day for an average user.  But, if you do nothing it’s likely your email habit will grow and you’ll have even less time to spend on the work that actually makes a profit.

Here are 5 action steps to cut your email habit in HALF and free up time to work on your business, and the profit generating activities you should be focussing on:

  1. Empty your Inbox.  Set up a folder for items that require action.  Delete or archive the rest.
  2. Limit your email length to 4 sentences or less.
  3. If an email you send doesn’t require a response, say so.
  4. Never check email first thing in the morning.  Complete your most important task first, preferably by 11am.
  5. Here’s the big one.....only check your email 3 times per day.  Once at 11am, after you’ve completed your most important task, again at 1pm to action any replies from your 11am messages, and lastly at 4pm.

Check email only 3 times a day?  I can’t do that, I hear you say.  In order to manage the outcry resulting from only replying to emails three times a day simply set up an auto-response email to inform your customers and colleagues that you have implemented a new email policy in a move to improved effectiveness, as it helps you accomplish more and serve them better.

Here’s what to do right now to cut your email habit in half and reclaim your time so you can spend it on profitable activities.  Don’t wait until tomorrow to start.  Take action NOW; draft your auto-responder email and set it up to send to any new emails you receive.  Let your colleagues know in person, so it doesn’t come as a complete shock to them.

Did you find this useful?  Please let us have your comments, below.  The bad, the good, and the ugly.  It’s how we improve.

5 Ways to Take Control of Your Email Habit

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Richard Mellish

    March 3, 2015 at 4:11 am

    I have recently implimented this policy and it works, however I will change my timing for reading emails in the morning to 11am and give it a try.

    This article is sound advice to everybody who is a slave to emails. Use this advice and become the master and email becomes the slave.

    Reply
    • Mynda Treacy

      March 3, 2015 at 8:41 am

      Awesome, Richard. Hope you find yourself more productive before you know it 🙂

      Reply
  2. Ashli Trimnal

    January 29, 2011 at 6:06 am

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    Reply
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    November 25, 2010 at 4:31 pm

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    Reply
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    November 25, 2010 at 11:45 am

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  19. Marquetta Lager

    November 24, 2010 at 4:50 am

    Appreciate you creating this web site and sharing your viewpoint. I enjoy reading it within my lunch break at the office. It is nice to consider my mind off work even though for only 30 mins. Cheers

    Reply
  20. Christine

    September 17, 2010 at 1:36 pm

    So true. I find myself doing this all the time. I will try to discipline myself to follow your suggestions

    Thanks 🙂

    Reply

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