Why Do We Continue to Waste so Much Time on This? Is it an Addiction?
Nowadays, more than ever, people are doing more with less, particularly in the COVID-19 era. Think about over the past year and a half how many businesses had to downsize (if they didn't go under altogether) and require the remaining staff to pick up more duties in order for the business to stay afloat.
In my daily routine, one thing that I find myself doing that turns out to be a major time suck is checking email over and over and over. Do you find yourself doing this too? If so, you and I are not alone.
A 2018 survey by Adobe of over 1,000 office workers in the USA found they spent an average of 3.1 hours a day on work email, plus 2.5 hours per weekday on personal email. That's a lot of precious time spent on checking email.
What are some ways to cut down on email time each day?
According to the website emailmeter.com there are a few ways you can curb your non-essential email composing and checking temptations. You may want to take the following into consideration.
Declutter Your Inbox
I find myself doing this often but still find it difficult at times to stay ahead. I really don't get caught up on decluttering until the weekend. Who wants to spend their free time decluttering their inbox? In any event, it's probably a good idea to delete or file away what you don't need so you have less of a mess when you start with email tasks.
Plan Email Time Ahead
This is something I could definitely benefit from. Rather than checking email every five minutes. Pick a time period or a couple of times per day to sit down and go through your inbox. Less time spent checking email means more time concentrating on productivity. It's all about setting a plan and sticking to it.
Schedule Your Emails
Getting your email in early will hopefully make it so you're not waiting hours or days for a response.
There's no doubt that we all have plenty do to in a day, wasting extra time on email could be one thing we eliminate to free up time.
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