How to manage 126 emails a day without burning out

By 2019, the average knowledge worker was sending and receiving 126 emails per day, which amounts to one every four minutes.  

That’s a huge problem. As Cal Newport argues in his latest book, “[…] these context switches, even if brief, induce a heavy cost in terms of mental energy – reducing cognitive performance and creating a sense of exhaustion and reduced efficacy”.

According to collaboration expert Rob Cross, the heart of the problem is not the technology itself, but how we deal with email. In his book “Beyond Collaboration Overload”, he suggests a framework with three categories of healthy email norms: 1) limiting disruptions, 2) usage, and 3) format and organization. I use that framework to organize and share my best tips around email. Today’s topic: limiting disruptions.

First, have your email program turned off by default. 84% of knowledge workers don’t do that, and instead keep it open in the background constantly. Yet, resisting the impulse to check incoming emails is close to impossible, which is why 70% of emails are opened within the first six seconds (!) of receipt. By turning your email program off by default, you can avoid context switches without having to resist the impulse to check. This is, hands down, one of the best tips I know to get more effective and less stressed at work.

Second, set aside specific times during the day for checking and processing email. I usually do so at 10 am and 3 pm. If that’s unrealistic for your job, use a frequency that suits you. In any case, only turn on your email program when you have both the time and mental energy to work with it. And if you’re low on the latter, do a defocus bout before turning to email.

Third, process email in batches. Research shows that handling your email in bulk is much more productive and less stressful. Unlike checking and answering email constantly throughout the day, batching allows you to avoid those context switches, which saves you considerable amounts of mental energy. So, during your preset slots, spend up to 90 minutes at a time entirely focused on working through your email.

Pro tip: According to productivity expert Chris Bailey, one of the most important email tips takes only ten seconds: Delete the email app on your phone. While this might seem impossible at first, it’s immensely powerful for limiting disruptions from email, while the downside is surprisingly limited. So here’s my challenge to you: Try it for one day – and see what happens.

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Until next week,
Christian