Happy Monday. This is a great tip to get your Monday off to a flying start – don’t be ruled by your inbox. If you’re a busy manager, chances are you will spend the majority of your day either in meetings or dealing with your inbox. But here’s a great tip for you, only look at your inbox at two (maximum three) given times each day.
Your inbox shouldn’t rule you and yet for many of us it does. It’s like Pavlov’s Dogs, we get pre-conditioned to answer emails straightaway. However this then becomes a major time sink and actually makes you less productive.
Practical tips for mastering the two inbox sessions per day:
- Diarise specific times, maybe at the start and end of your day
- Turn off the email client
- Turn off desktop and mobile notifications (these are a distraction anyway and can interrupt your thought process)
- Tell your co-workers, team and superiors and explain why you’re doing it (to be more productive)
- Be rigorous in applying this new way of working
- Don’t give up – it takes time to establish a new routine so if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again (the old adages are the best)
