As I continue on my quest to get to the bottom of my “busyness” and reduce that feeling of being overburdened and overstressed, I must first address the use of technology. You’ll note that i’ve been “down” on email lately. With good reason, I’d say. I receive close to 300 emails every day. Being a stickler for staying on top of my inbox and keeping it in order means an amazing amount of my time is just spent “taking a quick look” at an email to see if I need to reply or not.
I’ve decided this is unacceptable and I’m exploring all sorts of different things with email. The other time-suck on my hit list is my Blackberry. That little buzz or beep it does with every incoming email makes it seem urgent and I respond like Pavlov’s dog every time I hear it. I’ve actually been on a date and responded to an email that came through on my Blackberry! Needless to say, I didn’t get a second date. I did not deserve one.
I have been letting technology rule my time in ways that has to end so I can be more productive. Here are my most immediate tips I’m working on this week:
- Set “no email” hours. I block off my calendar for a specified time each day and I close my email client and do some actual work. I focus on the tasks on my list without the constant interruption of emails.
- Training others–I have some people at my company that will send an email and if I do not reply in 20 minutes they will send ANOTHER email! Then they will call or walk down to my office. That might be ok if it was something urgent, but these are just every day non-urgent requests. I’m training them that unless it is an urgent issue I deserve a few hours to reply. Heck, sometimes it may take me 24 hours to get back to you! I will not be bullied by your email bombardment to drop everything and reply to you!
- Turn my Blackberry into “just a phone” after I leave the office. This one is my favorite. I finally found the feature that allows me to turn off the notifications for emails on my Blackberry. Now, it doesn’t vibrate throughout the night as the late night emails come flying in as people frantically remember something they need my help with tomorrow. Sure, I get to the office and see a few dozen emails first thing in the morning, but the good part is I had a relaxing evening at home or with friends and wasn’t distracted by work the whole time.
- Using my calendar. This may sound elementary, but I insist that if you want to talk with me for more than 15 minutes and I might get an action item out of it, then you have to schedule a meeting with me on my calendar. I had to start this because too many times I would agree to something in the hallway and forget about it by the time I got back to my desk. I let someone down and I was frustrated that someone would expect me to take action on something just because they mentioned it in a hallway! Ugh…that was a lose-lose. If it is important enough to be on my calendar, then it’s important enough to do! I’m well known now in the office for saying, “That sounds like something I have to think about or make a decision on. Better send me a meeting request or nothing further will ever happen about it.” Then i walk off. If it’s truly an issue, sure enough I get a meeting request. If it was just someone whining about something then I never hear about it again.
Those are some of my first steps in introducing sanity back into my work life. If you’ve got some more ways to make technology work for you, let me hear them!
As freaky as this may sound to us high-achievers out there, I find I am most productive when don’t keep my email open all day and only do 3 or 4 check-ins per day. With the amount of email one gets it is easy to use it as a time suck to delay starting work on projects that require dedicated focus.