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This is excellent advice. Answering e-mail twice a day and leaving the inbox empty every time is crucial to email productivity. It's obvious how it saves time
by coffeemug 17y ago
This is excellent advice.
Answering e-mail twice a day and leaving the inbox empty every time is crucial to email productivity. It's obvious how it saves time - the more you answer emails, the more people reply. So you end up sending three times as much email each day as you would have if you only answered twice a day. You do more "work" but get less done. On the other hand, answering email twice a day gets things done and keeps your mind clear.
- adriand 17y agoI never thought about that effect of answering emails promptly, but you're absolutely right. The more emails I send, the more I receive, which creates a vicious circle. Unfortunately for me right now, many people know I respond rapidly to email, so they email me for urgent issues that need immediate attention since they know I'm generally available. That said, I probably just need to start giving out our support email address and telling them it'll be dealt with by the team as a whole, since there's no guarantee I'm not in a meeting or out for the day (or, as the case may be, not answering emails any more because I read this comment!)
- coffeemug 17y agoSo slow it down. Respond five times a day for a week. Then four, three, etc. After a couple of weeks you'll be down to two emails a day. Of course it's tough if you're on support, but then there should be a separate account for handling support issues. All other email should get the "two respones a day" treatment.
- listic 17y agoDoing email twice a day seems too much for me. I think I can get away with once. Also, there's IM. My IM client doesn't autostart; I start it manually when I want to chat with someone or when I get to know that someone needs to chat with me. It seems to look very radical for the folks in my company, but I think it's common sense.