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E-mail overload: Declutter your inbox

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20th Jan 2016
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When programmer Ray Tomlinson implemented the first email system in 1971 on ARPAnet, the forerunner of the internet, it was a miracle of the digital age.

It was the first system able to send electronic mail between users (previously mail could only be sent to people using the same computer). Tomlinson picked ‘@’ as the symbol to separate users from their different machines.

Jump to now, and Tomlinson’s innovation has long since become a staple of modern life. In fact, for many, email has become a loathsome facet of commercial existence. As one Twitter user quipped, “90% of adulthood is just deleting emails”.

In a recent article on our sister site BusinessZone, the entrepreneur Marc Wileman detailed the email overload that came with a growing business:

“Just to read them, not to action anything, took hours,” Wileman told BusinessZone, recounting the early stages of building his business. “It sounds obvious, but I couldn’t continue. If the business grew like I wanted it to I’d get to more than 1,000 and that [just reading e-mails] would become my day.”

It doesn’t have to be this way, however. There are some steps you can take to redress the disproportionate time spent answering and reading emails.

Check email at set points (establish a precedent)

In a uniquely modern workplace phenomenon, email anxiety is a real thing.

In a recent piece on Business Insider, the psychologist Ron Friedman noted that the reason a glut of unread emails create anxiety is because “each message represents another demand on your time and another decision you have to make”.

A good first step is to set specific times when you check your emails. Wileman checks his email every couple of days, and has set up an automated reply informing you that this is his policy.

Darren Glanville, Spotlight Reporting’s head of UK sales, checks emails twice a day at 12pm and 4pm. At particularly busy periods, he also switches on his auto reply. “From my perspective, I get lots of distractions as it is, the last thing I need is the distraction of an email, a lot of which is spam,” says Glanville. “I don’t think there’s anything that’s so urgent it warrants an immediate response - and if it is, they can phone me.”

That may not be realistic for everyone, especially with client demands. But even if you only create a routine where you don’t check email for 30 or 50 minutes at a time, it could be beneficial to productivity.

OHIO

In his book Extreme Productivity, the efficiency expert Robert Pozen espouses an email golden rule: OHIO (Only Handle It Once).

‘Once you’ve opened the email, don’t tarry - deal with it immediately’, advises Pozen. If it doesn’t warrant your attention, that’s fine. Just as long as a resolution is enacted after you’ve opened the mail.

Unresolved issues are distracting, detracting from what’s in front of you. Force yourself to be present by doing tasks as you encounter them. And as Pozen says, responding later means you have to waste time finding and rereading that email.

Pop-up alerts (get rid of ‘em)

Mobile phone and desktop notifications need to be turned off if you are going to enforce a more disciplined work relationship with emails.

Glanville of Spotlight has deactivated all notifications on his phone apart from text and phone calls.

As far as desktop alerts, both Gmail and Outlook (and other providers) offer push notifications which alert you when an email has arrived. Gmail explains that this is so “you can keep track of your mail even when you’re not looking at Gmail”.

When you’re extremely busy, you don’t need notifications adding to your cognitive load. An email pop-up forces your brain to make a choice: “Shall I check this email or carry on?” Studies have found that divided attention lowers student grades, let alone how it would affect a highly technical profession like accounting.

There’s an app for that

Much like accounting itself, the add-on market has created new ways to attain efficiency in dealing with emails.

There are many options, and it’s up to the user to decide what works for them. A nice minimalistic app is Triage. It’s only available iOS (that is, iPhone). In Triage, there are no folders; it presents your emails as a stack of cards.

The user swipes a mail card to either archive it or keep it. If you need to reply or forward a message, you tap on the card to reveal more options.

For Android users, Mail Wise is also a popular contender. 

Replies (2)

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By jford
31st Jan 2016 21:50

Sanebox
I've used SaneBox for over a year now. It's cheap and I think it's great. It uses smart logic to sort your emails received into folders so that only the really important stuff goes into your inbox. All the other stuff - newsletters, receipts etc can go into separate folders for you to look at when you're less busy. There's also a black hole folder where you can put spam that gets through. All future emails from that person go straight to the black hole so you never see them again. We both get a $5 credit on account if you sign up using the following link - https://www.sanebox.com/signup/3b7870b4f7

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By JuliaFur
17th Apr 2018 15:44

Email overload is an issue many people care about. You mentioned great tools. Personally, I am using CleanEmail for several years and I am happy with that.

It's an email management service that helps to achieve Inbox Zero or simply clean up emails cluttering Gmail mailbox . https://clean.email/

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