Does Email Schedule Your Day?

Email is a factor in all our lives. Not only does our professional life revolve around emails, we keep up with friends and family through email as well. Many of us recall the days of standing over a fax machine, so sending email communications in real time is revolutionary.

All that being said, email has its downside as well – it can take over our lives and prioritize our days. I am talking about the email rabbit hole.

Everyone comes into the office each day with a list of tasks they’d like to accomplish. But then, we sit down, open our email, and 8 or 10 hours later we leave work with dozens or hundreds of emails answered and the original list of tasks untouched.

When this happens, it means other people are prioritizing our time through email. We can’t totally avoid emails, but what can we do?

Simply put, emails shouldn’t be what your day is scheduled around. The trick is to localize the time spent in your inbox. Make emails a task on your list, instead of building your list around your inbox.

If possible, only open email on a schedule. Work on your primary tasks for an hour or two then do an hour of email catch up. This way, you put in time towards your list of tasks before diving into the email abyss.

You might find that a good place to start is to turn off the email notifications that pop up on your desktop. This way, you will get work done without being distracted by your inbox.

Email is great, and we couldn’t do our work without it, but don’t let your inbox run your day.

Until next time…we are Advoco, make every minute count.

About Craig: Craig Page is a self-proclaimed “data geek” with nearly 20 years of EAM/maintenance consulting experience. His favorite work is data migrations. He enjoys solving the puzzle to make the data fit and keep the integrity of the information. When Craig isn’t in front of a computer, he is probably running a chainsaw or a tractor. Have a question for Craig? Send him an email!