Each email is really a letter.
Imagine a mailman popping his head through your door with a couple of letters for you - every five minutes! You can see from the envelopes that most of them are really uninteresting, but you quickly look through them as they are handed to you.
It may only take you a few seconds or a few minutes, but would you put up with that? Is there any chance of success or productivity if you would allow this to continue?! Email is no different.
If you want to be effective and productive, you need to be able to concentrate, to focus on those important activities in your life.
These activities could be personal, for example spending time with your wife and children (how close can you be if you looking at your emails while you were meant to be spending time with someone?).
Alternatively, activities could be business matters; meetings, projects or reports that you are working on.
I have a friend, let's call him Jim.
Jim is a youth worker.
He is an inspirational speaker and is generally loved by the people at work.
When you send Jim an email, you will usually get a reply within a few minutes, sometimes even within a few seconds! When I tell people about Jim, the most common reaction is, 'what fantastic service, what great time management!' However, let's look a little deeper.
Jim has a dream, of writing and publishing a book.
He knows that once written, this book is going to change the face of youth work.
His experience has giving him rare insights that will benefit millions of young people all around the globe.
He's had this dream for years.
Often he sits down at his computer and starts to think.
He starts to write some ideas down.
He gets into the zone and his creative juices start to flow.
Suddenly, 'ping'! He hears the familiar sound of arriving email! He quickly checks to see what has arrived in his inbox.
Five emails in total, two are spam, one is from the manager of his youth club, one is from a kid he works with and one is from a close friend of his.
He quickly replies to each of the emails.
He's a fast typist, it only takes him five minutes total.
Proud with his accomplishment, Jim takes a deep breath, stands up and makes himself a coffee.
Guess what - he then got involved with other tasks and activities and didn't get back to writing that day.
The true cost of email interruptions is not only the time they take to look at (or even to reply), but the time it takes to get back to the project, and to get back into the level of creativity that you were at before you were interrupted.
It is not unusual for people to be so distracted, that like Jim, they don't even get back to the original, high priority activity they were originally doing.
So treat your email like it is real mail.
Actions to take: 1.
Turn off your email arrival sound 2.
Turn off your automatic send/receive - now you will have to actively check to see if you have mail 3.
Close down your email program when you are not using it 4.
Schedule a few times during the day to check your email and to reply to the important ones 5.
Schedule some times when you will focus on people or projects and will do everything you can to ensure that emails have no way through to you You would never allow real mail to destroy your focus and concentration, don't allow email to either.
Watch your productivity soar.
Imagine a mailman popping his head through your door with a couple of letters for you - every five minutes! You can see from the envelopes that most of them are really uninteresting, but you quickly look through them as they are handed to you.
It may only take you a few seconds or a few minutes, but would you put up with that? Is there any chance of success or productivity if you would allow this to continue?! Email is no different.
If you want to be effective and productive, you need to be able to concentrate, to focus on those important activities in your life.
These activities could be personal, for example spending time with your wife and children (how close can you be if you looking at your emails while you were meant to be spending time with someone?).
Alternatively, activities could be business matters; meetings, projects or reports that you are working on.
I have a friend, let's call him Jim.
Jim is a youth worker.
He is an inspirational speaker and is generally loved by the people at work.
When you send Jim an email, you will usually get a reply within a few minutes, sometimes even within a few seconds! When I tell people about Jim, the most common reaction is, 'what fantastic service, what great time management!' However, let's look a little deeper.
Jim has a dream, of writing and publishing a book.
He knows that once written, this book is going to change the face of youth work.
His experience has giving him rare insights that will benefit millions of young people all around the globe.
He's had this dream for years.
Often he sits down at his computer and starts to think.
He starts to write some ideas down.
He gets into the zone and his creative juices start to flow.
Suddenly, 'ping'! He hears the familiar sound of arriving email! He quickly checks to see what has arrived in his inbox.
Five emails in total, two are spam, one is from the manager of his youth club, one is from a kid he works with and one is from a close friend of his.
He quickly replies to each of the emails.
He's a fast typist, it only takes him five minutes total.
Proud with his accomplishment, Jim takes a deep breath, stands up and makes himself a coffee.
Guess what - he then got involved with other tasks and activities and didn't get back to writing that day.
The true cost of email interruptions is not only the time they take to look at (or even to reply), but the time it takes to get back to the project, and to get back into the level of creativity that you were at before you were interrupted.
It is not unusual for people to be so distracted, that like Jim, they don't even get back to the original, high priority activity they were originally doing.
So treat your email like it is real mail.
Actions to take: 1.
Turn off your email arrival sound 2.
Turn off your automatic send/receive - now you will have to actively check to see if you have mail 3.
Close down your email program when you are not using it 4.
Schedule a few times during the day to check your email and to reply to the important ones 5.
Schedule some times when you will focus on people or projects and will do everything you can to ensure that emails have no way through to you You would never allow real mail to destroy your focus and concentration, don't allow email to either.
Watch your productivity soar.