How much of your day as Nonprofit Executive Director is spent responding to emails?
Are you chained to your inbox?
Email can be a dangerous trap eating your time and zapping your energy to address your own priorities.
Why do we allow ourselves to be shackled to our email inbox?
Let’s explore why you get sucked into the email trap and new habits to break free and regain time and energy.
You can hear the full episode at relishyourrole.com/17
Your Email is a Venus Fly-Tap
You get to work with a clear sense of what you want to accomplish that day.
You fire up your computer, grab your coffee, and there is a string of emails awaiting you.
As you work your way through the email, some of them require research before you can respond. Others make you realize you have lost track of a previous correspondence, and you have to search for it. A third alerts you that there is a conflict brewing among one of your partners requiring a thoughtful response.
And all of this happens before 9:00 a.m., and before you know it, your morning is shot just working through your emails.
What was once a useful communication tool has become a tyrant controlling your time and mental energy.
You lose control of your focus, forcing you into a reactive mode.
You can control your inbox and reclaim your day.
Three Habits to Break Free from Your Email
There are three habits you to free you from the tyranny of email.
- Master the urge to continually check your inbox
- Triage your inbox
- Set clear time boundaries for responding to email
Controlling your Urge to Continually Check Your Inbox
According to the McKinsey Global Institute we receive 122 emails every day at work and check our inbox 72 times a day.
72 times a day?!?
That is a ton of time and there is no reason to think it will decrease.
You are bombarded throughout the day with the requests and needs of others.
Wiser minds than mine understand what it is about unread emails that makes us anxious. I think we would all would agree that not knowing what is awaiting us in our inbox is uncomfortable.
We continually checking and refreshing our browser to see what emails we have received.
You know the pattern, you are writing a grant report, you finish a paragraph, and you switch back to your inbox and get distracted by reading your new emails. We cannot seem to be able to complete a task without little breaks to check our emails.
If you wear an Apple watch or use a notification system with auditory and/or visual prompts–you are aways aware of your inbox.
Coupled with our internal anxiety, we surround ourselves with visual and auditory cues to distract and lead us back to our email screen.
One way to control your email is to limit the time you check it. That is hard to do with nonstop notifications.
When you turn off these notifications you can take control when you check your email.
Set aside just two or three times a day to check your email. I mention this approach on this in episode 2 and episode 8 . When you check your email just the first thing in the morning, once mid-day and once mid-afternoon, you can stay current without being chained to your screen.
If this seems too extreme, try limiting the time you check your email to once an hour. You will discover there is nothing in your inbox that requires your constant attention, and you will not miss anything by just checking in hourly.
Triage your Inbox
If you aren’t continually checking your inbox, you can bring a clear eye to what you read. Not everything is a top priority.
You gain control by triaging your email and categorizing it emails decreasing the number requiring a response.
Here are some easy ways to do focus only on the important emails:
Newsletters, Email Blasts, Press Releases
These informational emails do not need an immediate read. Create labels in your inbox for newsletters and move them from your inbox into a separate folder. This accomplishes two things:
Visually moving some emails out of your inbox relieves the pressure, creating a separate resource file to read at your leisure.
Emails you are copied on
If you are copied on an email, it is usually to inform you rather than requiring a response. These emails do not need your immediate attention. Most email programs allow you to identify those CC emails. Separate them from your primary inbox and read them when you have time.
You may be copied on an email that involves one of your staff. If you respond or insert yourself into the conversation, you may be undercutting your staff. It is usually better to talk with your staff rather than insert yourself in the email chain.
Carefully read those emails where you have been copied, if you have not been explicitly asked to respond, don’t.
You are supporting staff by staying quiet when you are copied on an email. Curtail your desire to chime in, there are many good reasons to hang back.
It is good practice to forward emails to staff who could more knowledgably respond. These requests may provide an opportunity for your staff to share their expertise- an action you should support.
It is tempting to always want to be the one who replies to an email- weigh that desire against the time it will take and developing leadership through delegation.
By thoughtfully forwarding emails to others within, you are promoting the skills of your staff as well and thinning out your inbox.
Lastly there are many emails which can be scanned and deleted. Allow yourself to delete them and move on, you have other things to do.
Set Clear Boundaries
I talked about the importance of not continually checking your emails throughout the day. Turning off your notifications will help you curb the reflexive tendency to check your inbox.
But you do have mails which require your thoughtful response.
By setting aside time to read and thoughtfully respond to selected emails you will gain hours of your workday.
High performing executive directors consciously set aside 30-minute time slots throughout their day to thoughtfully respond to emails.
They carve out undisturbed time to bring their thoughtful selves to responding.
Notice how different that sounds and feels?
What would it be like if you could actually schedule your time to respond to emails rather than feeling like you have to immediately respond and having your time eaten away?
Just imagine- having control of your time and setting boundaries so you can work intentionally and efficiently.
If this sounds think something that you want to achieve, get in touch at https://relishyourrole.com. You can learn about our signature system that helps you gain control of your time and strengthen your work relationships so you can lead with confidence in your authentic voice.
I know I can help you get there.