How to handle email: Stay Conscious

I write for Time Management for iPad Magazine, an authority on Time Management.This link takes you to the November 2013 issue, which includes an article I wrote on surviving email by staing “mentally conscious”. Here is an excerpt:

If email has to be used, it should ideally be used in block form, not ad hoc. This makes all the difference. Responding to a stimulus just because it is there is reactive, and the detrimental results are described in the paragraph above. However, choosing to respond to email on your own terms is the opposite; it’s proactive, and it allows the user to undertake the action consciously and by choice. This is very different and results in far more consistent levels of focus, concentration and stamina, because no urgent reaction is present, but instead, a genuine sense of control is.

Block form responding means assigning times in the day to respond, for example, 10:00 to 10:30 and 1:00-1:30, and so on, rather than immediately when the messages come in. Sure, there are some emails that may supersede this rule, like the ones from the boss, but most people can live with a delay of an hour or so before receiving a response, and even if they cannot, it is easy to educate people and manage their expectations by reassuring them that their emails will be responded to reasonably promptly.

To read more, please click here.