Creating good email habits

Email is such an integral part of daily personal and business life, that it's often hard to imagine how people managed without it. But as useful as it is, it can have its drawbacks.

It can be time-consuming to respond to emails, it can drain your energy - when you are working on a project and an email pops up that takes away your concentration. According to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, the average worker spends a third of their day checking and answering messages in their inbox.

Often you might find yourself compelled to keep an email chain going, you don't want the other person to think you're ignoring them or are bored with the conversation. But the most considerate thing to do would be to give them the mental space and time to think about something else. Every time you are interrupted it takes away your ability to focus on what you're actually doing at that time and can take about 15 minutes after an interruption to back into a state of flow, so if you're checking your emails every 10 minutes, you're never going to create that flow.

Boundaries help to prevent this, so remove email or business-related message apps from your phone or stop notifications from flashing up on your desktop. Batch-processing your emails in time blocks is also a really productive way to manage your emails. Use your 'out of office' to manage other people's expectations. You could set your status to let people know you have a meeting, or won't be checking emails until later in the day. Creating boundaries around your time gives you space to think.

Email and messaging are technology that was created to make our lives easier - not harder. It's how we use them that counts.

Tips to avoid becoming an email hogger:

Don't always reply straight away. If the message isn't urgent, set aside time when it's convenient to respond later in the day.

Consider the other person. Keep in mind that many people have demands on their time.

Make it count. Include plenty of information in your email and try to move the conversation forward so it requires fewer responses.

Don't send 'lazy' responses. One-line emails that don't answer people's questions just mean more follow-up emails are needed.

Use the 'out-of-office' function. It's not just useful for holidays - you can switch it on whenever you want to manage other people's expectations of how fast you'll respond.

Forget FOMO. Is the fear of missing out causing you to send replies? Try just letting things drop from time to time.

Manage your time. Try not to respond to business emails in personal time and vice versa. Set boundaries, and also have time out from being connected.

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