Every few minutes, another email pops into your Inbox.  Perhaps you have the little popup on your screen that you always glance at when it appears?  How many times a day does that happen and how long does it take you to get back ‘on task’?

Many people like to check email frequently because it makes them feel as if they are working and in demand, as well as being in touch with all the news and developments that they need to monitor.  If you are honest with yourself about the time spent on this, you will probably get a nasty shock!

To try and break the email cycle, there are a few methods you can employ:

Limit the number of times you check mail. Even as little as a couple of times a day may be enough as long as you let people know that they should call you if they need an urgent response.

Cut subscriptions – you never actually read many of the newsletters that you subscribe to.  If you don’t read them, then unsubscribe and free up the inbox.

Don’t use email as a chat forum – if you are firing messages back and forth as if you were having a conversation, then pick up the phone!  It will be quicker to have the conversation verbally.

Try out some tools – there are some very useful plug-ins and add-ons for email clients.  For Outlook there is ‘ClearContext’ which is a tool that prioritises, schedules and colour codes messages based on your usage history.

Indicate whether you expect a reply - it’s worth just noting ‘No Reply Needed’ at the end of a message, which prevents the urge for someone to fire back the polite ‘Thank you’ type message.  Alternatively, of course, you should also specify that you are expecting a reply as appropriate!

By taking control of your email you can save hours a week – and just think of what you could do with that time instead.