Schedule Your Email Sessions

What does it involve?

Block out periods of time in your daily schedule that are specifically for dealing with your inbox, then don’t engage with email outside of them.

Digital Habit Lab

This experiment is from The Digital Habit Lab—a deck of 50 experiments to help you disrupt digital habits, and take control of your tech.

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Why do it?

• Be more efficient by having a clear deadline to get your emails done by in any given session.
• Create clear boundaries for time with no emails to help you accomplish activities which require long periods of your full attention.
• Reduce the amount of time you spend in a ‘fight or flight’ state which is induced by constantly checking for the arrival of good or bad news.

How does it work?

1. Work out how long you need to spend on emails daily, and also what times of day (if any) are critical for you to be quickly responsive.
2. Now define the number of email sessions you will need in a day, and how long each will last. Block these into your calendar for tomorrow.
3. Treat these sessions as you would any other meeting—show up, stay focused on emails, finish on time and don’t email out of these blocks.

Tips

You won’t get this right first time —there is a tension between the ‘want’ and ‘need’ of how much time you spend in your emails. Take your best guess and then at the end of the following day re-assess based on your experience. You may also consider treating each day differently, perhaps being in your emails more on a Monday and then reducing the amount during the week. Ultimately find a balance that helps serve your goals.