my new email concept
I had some inspiration this week when trying to figure out how to reduce the painful experience of email at work. I am talking about the inbox that fills as rapidly as I can close or resolve email. This leads to a part-dopamine fuelled and part desperate effort to drain it completely. I mainly dwell in a reactive state.
My new concept is simple: “only commit to reading and processing email from before the day”. I believe this has some advantages:
- The list is finite by definition. It doesn’t grow as I respond.
- I don’t get so quickly pulled into growing threads. Ideally, threads are resolved before I get to them the next day.
- It is easy to implement and I can do it without telling anyone.
- (I am still generally reading/responding within 24 hours … ish).
I implemented this end of this week by setting an email-received rule in Outlook: all new emails go to a different folder. In the morning, I can drag across email to the Inbox (so I can still use the focused/other views). Generally, I still firmly believe that clients and colleagues should use IMs or call me if a response is needed in under 24 hours (which in the face of the cold, hard light of the next morning, rarely turns out to be the case).
On my first day, Friday, I was still tempted to dive into the day’s email (dopamine procrastination!). But I already felt like that was an intentional bonus, rather than fighting a losing battle. I’ll post an update on how I find it sometime.