– Distraction and Time Eater

With the daily madness of email overload, there’s almost nothing better than an inbox free of unread messages. How often do we actually achieve this?

Due to the sheer volume of emails, pretty much never. This can cause problems because every glance into a full inbox is frustrating. It constantly elicits the feeling of having to read through, answer and work on the emails. Since an email inbox contains a variety of mail from different customers, projects, advertisements, and more, efficient handling without a plan is nearly impossible.

In addition, there is usually the feeling that every email is urgent. At the same time, they are usually nothing more than a letter in the mailbox. No one would think of immediately responding to a letter that arrives in the mail (unless of course there is an urgent deadline).
A full inbox is always a distraction from work and is most often a time waster.

Here’s what you can do to efficiently handle email and ensure that your full inbox doesn’t distract or burden you:

1. Turn off all email notifications.
2. Don’t look at your emails first thing in the morning. Get the really important things done for the day first.
3. Schedule a time slot each day to handle emails.
4. Work on your emails in a block. Any email that you can deal with in a few minutes, do it right away. Anything that takes longer, schedule it.
By doing this, you create fixed periods of time daily in which you work on your emails and your workflow remains undisturbed.

If you need assistance, feel free to contact me at julia@buhmann.consulting