28% of Your Day is Spent on Email: Let's Change That

I read a McKinsey & Company report recently that said 28% of our day is spent reading and answering email. Think about that for a second. Let’s say you’re an early riser and you start your day at 5am and we assume you finally close your eyes around 11pm. You’re pulling an 18-hour day. That would mean 5 hours out of your day are spent on email. 5 whole flipping hours!

Another study found that we’re sending as many as 86 work-related emails from work and another 25 from home — every day. What ARE we doing?

Given the amount of time and energy we’re giving to our inboxes … I have to ask: Are you an inbox-zero kinda person? Or, have you basically given up? Does your email icon on your phone show 12,738 messages unread?

Confession … I’m a inbox-zero guy. Ugh!

But, that doesn’t mean that I’ve successfully found a way to streamline or limit my time spent on email. That, my friends, is an ongoing battle.

Here are a few of the ways that I’m going to try to change my pattern:

CREATE AN “EMAIL TIME BLOCK”

One of the most popular suggestions is that you create time blocks in your day that are reserved for email — and you force yourself not to check it except for inside those time blocks. I even read an article that suggested you put up an away message outside of those blocks that says something to the effect of: “I”m trying to work more and email less. Please call me if this is an emergency.” And, this is a good thing. Part of the issue is no one is communicating personally anymore. I’ve gotten most of my breakthroughs by having an actual, physical conversation. Isn’t that amazing?

If you’re like me, it’s easy to check email all day long — not wanting to miss an opportunity or to not be readily available to clients, family, and friends. But, in order to be more productive and really offer your undivided attention to these people, you can’t be pulled in a million directions. I think blocking off “email time” can help with this. I know it’s helped me.

TURN OFF YOUR NOTIFICATIONS DURING NO-EMAIL BLOCKS

In order for this strategy to work, you’d need to turn off your email notifications. A really great Gmail add-on is called Inbox Pause by Boomerang. You can add this to your Gmail and it will allow you to pause your inbox (and notifications) for a certain period of time. It also pauses them from coming into your phone. [Click here to continue reading...]