How unattended emails affects your health

Emails neglection may stress your mind

Reading every email as it arrives can derail your concentration faster than you can say “What were we talking about?” instead of attending to each one as it pops into your inbox, batch your mail. Ste aside blocks of time twice a day (if you just have to do it more often, try once every other hour) to read and write emails.

Another key to managing email is keeping your inbox empty. (This may take some time to accomplish initially, but it will save you lots of time in the long run). It also does wonders for our frame of mind. I’m telling you, whenever I see a number such as 416 in my inbox I can literally feel my energy drop when I think (even subconsciously) about all the unattended little tasks that number represents.

So here’s what to do about it.

DON’T LEAVE EMAIL UNATTENDED

When you open emails, process them immediately. Either delete, forward, respond, or if you don’t have an answer, move the email into a follow-up folder. Before you move on to another task, be sure you’ve deleted or archived every incoming email.

Now evaluate all the newsletters you subscribe to. Are they all worth your time? Or do they clutter your inbox? They easy solution: There’s a little button at the end of every newsletter that says “unsubscribe”. Learn to use it.

Next, tackle the jokesters. Do you have friends who forward you every stupid joke or link to every silly YouTube video they watch? Ask them – politely and respectfully – to please take you off their forwarding list.

While you’re at it, talk to the well-meaning people who really feel you need them to stay well informed. I had a friend once who went on the Atkins diet for three days and for the next three years her mother forwarded every article ever written about anorexia. I’m sure you can relate.

There, you’ve just saved yourself from opening ten emails a day.

When you open emails, process them immediately. Either delete, forward, respond, or if you don’t Have an answer, move the email into a follow-up folder. Before you move on to another task, be sure you’ve deleted or archived every incoming email.

DITCH THE DELIBERATION

When it’s time to answer your email, don’t waste time trying to be clever or profound; make your point and move on. Deliberating over email can eat up big chunks of your day. If putting what you want to say in an email is difficult, then pick up the phone and have a conversation.

It may seem like small potatoes, but this email organization think has profound implications for the rest of your energy balance sheet. Not to put too metaphysical a point on it, but the more things we leave “undone” in our mental inbox, the more we drain our psychic (and emotional and ultimately physical) energy. You can start plugging those energy holes by facing up to the challenge of email.

Before long you’ll be treating the distractions of your bigger life in the same way: Deal with now, delegate, or delete. What an energizing concept!