Batching Emails – Take 2

Back in 2018 I wrote a post called: “How Batching my Emails is Saving me Time“

I’m not sure how long that process lasted for me, but I reverted back to my old ways.

Checking my email when bored or in a situation where it’s easier to check my phone than have an awkward random conversation.

Here’s the Thing With Email

I can guarantee 95% percent of all email you receive isn’t important.

On top of that, I can almost guarantee that most of them don’t require any urgent action from you.

Think about it. If it was super important wouldn’t a phone call or text message be ahead of the queue instead of email?

Whatever the case, if you are getting bombarded with emails and want to have a different approach keep reading. This is how I’ve changed how I approach email.

What I’m Doing Different This Time

There’s a couple of things I’m doing. See if any of these could work for you.

Working out the frequency of checking

The first is working out how many times I need to check my email, and the best times to do it.

For me 10:00am and 6:00pm is what I am starting with.

Adding in some friction

I’m introducing friction into checking email to help me stick to my plan. Anything that causes me some friction will help to not check my emails all the time.

• Moved the icon on the home page on my phone so I never see it
• Unpinned Thunderbird from my taskbar on the PC

Not seeing it, or being able to access it super easily really makes me either think about what I am doing, or just forget about it totally.

Working offline

As I use Thunderbird for everything when on my computer (including Gmail accounts) Once I have opened it and got all the emails, which most of them are rubbish. I turn off the connection by clicking the small WIFI looking symbol down on the bottom left.

This disconnects Thunderbird from the internet. I read, delete, reply or move my emails into folders. Then I just leave it.

When I get to my next email check in, and if I am at home and not using my mobile, I get thunderbird to connect to the internet and repeat the step above.

Once it connects it updates and catches up on all the things I’ve done.

It helps me not get distracted if something else comes into the inbox.

What About Business People

Well it depends on the type of work you do.

While we do live in a world of super connectivity and instant messages across various platforms, I don’t think people are going to be too sad if you don’t reply instantly to an email.

If it was urgent, they would get hold of you another way.

Some business people state something in their email signature saying they only check their emails at these certain times, anything urgent please ring.

In Conclusion

Email is something a lot of people still use, if left unattended it can become hard to manage.

It can also become a time waster.

Think about how much time you spend reading emails, and how much of it is worthwhile or productive.

If you feel like it is getting away on you, try some of my ideas above and let me know how you go.