A recent study showed the average professional spends 4.1 hours per day responding to work messages, says Dorie Clark, who undertook a project to determine why email seemed so burdensome. She shares three important lessons learned from the process, which may be valuable as you think about how to make the time you spend on email more efficient:
- Each “yes” leads to more work.
- It’s easier to say “no” when you realize how many people are asking.
- Focus on the few emails that are actually high priority.
Source: Harvard Business Review, April 9, 2018. Link.
Some predict the number of messages we receive will continue to grow at a compounded annual rate of 15%. Spending more time fielding messages – time away from our own priorities – isn’t a sustainable answer. And asking people to take you off mailing lists or leave you off “reply all” threads is a losing battle. (Just save your time and don’t respond.)
INSIGHTS: We can make smarter choices about where to focus our attention. Using highly descriptive subject lines is very helpful.