To email more effectively, do it less

Can you better manage email by compartmentalizing the time you spend responding? Will slower response times hamper the way others think of you? How will you best use the time you gain from better email management?

I had a bit of an epiphany this week at the RE/MAX International Conference. By avoiding constant availability for interruption via Blackberry, I was more focused, more relaxed and did a better job of responding to email when I sat down to tackle my inbox as a single task.

Duh. Not sure why it took so long to realize that.

I want a simple and repeatable way to manage my messages. So I will try to compartmentalize my interaction with email. When I'm in my email client, I'm there to clear it out, each and every time. And then I'm on to other things.

To start, my simple email plan is:

1. Turn off the new mail notification feature in Microsoft Outlook. That's one big distraction eliminated.

2. Read and process my email inbox to zero four times per day to start. Ultimately, I'd love to get it to three times. In good GTD fashion, any message I can respond to in under two minutes gets answered then and there. Those requiring longer actions go onto my task list.

That's it. Simple? Yes. Sustainable? Maybe. And it's a radical departure from the way I manage email today. Because, really, I don't do it very well. I spend a ton of time in email, yet I still don't feel I respond as quickly, succinctly or consistently as I would like.

Research shows you are more productive when you focus on a single task without constant distraction. Interruptions take time to recover from -- up to 15 minutes each time, according to the linked study.

But there are negative cultural considerations to manage, as well. I am sure there are going to be some "Didn't you get my email?" phone calls and office drive-bys. But everything has trade-offs. I expect to be more focused, relaxed and productive because of this change. And that should be worth the trade-off.

So that's my email plan. What's yours? Here are a few resources and ideas to consider if you too are struggling at the inbox.

Tim Ferris, email outsourcer

The most radical approach comes from Tim Ferris, who writes about outsourcing his email in his best-selling book "The Four-Hour Workweek." Tim also has a lengthy blog post on how he has tamed his email beast:

Here’s the upshot: I get more than 1,000 e-mail a day from various accounts. Rather than spending 6-8 hours per day checking e-mail, which I used to do, I can skip reading e-mail altogether for days or even weeks at a time… all with 4-10 minutes a night…

[...]

E-mail is the last thing people let go of. Fortune 500 CEOs, bestselling authors, celebrities — I know dozens of top performers who delegate everything but e-mail, which they latch onto as something only they can do. “No one can check my e-mail for me” is the unquestioned assumption, or “I answer every email I receive” is the unquestioned bragging right that keeps them in front of a computer for 8-12 hours at a stretch. It’s not fun, and it keeps them from higher-impact or more rewarding activities.

I'm not ready to go that radical.

Lifehacker tips and tricks

The blog Lifehacker has an entire category dedicated to email overload. Here are some of their top posts on the topic:

• Use a text replacement program to spend less time on repetitive typing

• An entire blog devoted to email overload: email.overloaded.com

• How to tackle long emails

Other useful links

• 10 tips for managing email effectively. (Including using labels and folders to stay better organized)

• What your email response times say about you

• How to get the most out of GMail

• Using Getting Things Done methodology to process your inbox to zero every day

• The New York Times on simple email management strategies

Finally, it's important to remember that email, managed properly, it is a time saver. It is fashionable to bash email, but we should really bash ourselves for the way we control (or don't control) our inboxes. As Gina Trapani wrote:

... I suspect that a good part of the "information overload" story is a myth cooked up by folks who don't know how to use the internet well in order to demonize something they don't understand. I get more done via email and surfing the web than my parents ever did using phones and libraries, even when I'm having a bad day and switch to my email application the moment I see a new message notification.

This is right perspective in my view. Email is efficient -- when we stay in control.