The use of email has been identified as a key factor contributing to the daily stress levels of faculty, staff, and learners. The recommendations here are presented to give you options that may help you reduce the stress and administrative burden generally associated with using email.
1. Avoid the constant distraction of checking your email too frequently
- Schedule regular intervals to check email ( 5-10 minutes every hour, 1 hour in the morning and afternoon, etc.)
- Turn off email alerts and notifications
- Don't multitask when checking email.
2. De-clutter your inbox
- Read emails once then process. You should respond to, archive, or delete emails after reading.
- Organize your email using a minimal number of folders (an archive folder, a read later folder, and an archive for example). Use search to find emails when needed.
- Use email filters to automate filing of email,
- Unsubscribe from email lists and services you do not use,
- Avoid using your inbox as a to-do list, use appropriate task and project management tools for managing your workload.
3. Set Clear Email Use Expectations
- Clarify the types of communications you will send via email.
- Communicate your response time expectations and how you handle emails received during non business hours.
- Use shorthand to indicate when responses to your email messages are not needed (i.e. "NNTR - No need to respond")
4. Offload communications to enterprise collaboration platforms
- When possible and appropriate, use Google Chat, Slack, SMS or other real time applications for short time sensitive synchronous communication use cases.
References:
Improving email strategies to target stress and productivity in clinical practice
How to Spend Way Less Time on Email Every Day (hbr.org)