Are You Checking Email Too Much?

It’s almost reflexive. You pick up your phone and you immediately check your email. The question I want to look at today is about checking email too much…and a better way.

I’ve had a terrible email habit. I think it stemmed from FOMO, but I would check my email around 20 times a day. Waiting in line? Check my email. Cooking dinner? Check my email. Walking the dog? Check my email. And even though I would act on those emails immediately, by filing, deleting or sending to my task system, I knew that I was still taking far too much time with email. It had become a bad habit to constantly check.

What Happens When You Check Too Much

Email is a funny thing. It has expanded from an easier way to communicate into a way to have others push tasks onto you.

Think about the last few emails you received that you didn’t delete or file. That means you either have to respond or do something in response to the email. Ask yourself if you would have taken the same action if the person had asked you in person.

Think about this: if the woman at your kid’s school had asked you in the parking lot if you could make cupcakes for the end of the week, would you have said yes? Maybe, but you would have thought about it.

If it comes in an email, however, we lose two things: we lose that pause where we consider the task and decide what to do based on our current time; and we respond without considering the assumption that an email implies you will already do the task.

Email assumes we will comply, and without conscious effort, we do comply.

What Is Too Much

So often is too much?

The best way to judge is to ask yourself if you have time at the moment to take care of the email, either by filing, deleting, responding, or pushing to an outside system.

If you don’t have time to deal with the email — and by this I mean think about it and consider if you have time to do the tasks — don’t check it.

Email: The Electronic Child

If you have kids, you’ll understand this reference. Email is the kid tugging at your sleeve, constantly asking for something. And as any parent knows, if you spend all your time responding to that sleeve tugging, you do two things: you reinforce the behavior, and you get nothing else done.

Kids beg/nag because we let them. Email begs/nags because we let it. We let our minds engage with it, even without considering what we need to do.

10 and 2 (and 6)

So what’s a better way?

First of all, don’t check your email first thing. That is equivalent to letting a bunch of people ask you for things before you even had a chance to settle in and see where you are for the day.

I suggest picking set times to check your email.

I’m currently teaching my daughter to drive, and I remind her that she needs to have both hands on the wheel – 10 and 2. It’s a good time to check email as well. 10 lets you settle into your day before dealing with the tasks others are piling on; 2 lets you deal with anything truly urgent before you leave for the day. And I add in 6 for checking personal email.

Three times only instead of reflexive checking.

Summary

Save yourself blindly taking on things that others dump on you. Limit how often you check your email, and check it when you have the time to really think about the request. You’ll be amazed at the results.

Image by BuzzFarmers. Licensed under Creative Commons. Text added.