Email Lessons Learned (...the hard way)

"...the bings, bongs, and beeps of emails and tweets." ~Goodnight iPad

Although email was invented in the late 1970's, it did not gain popular adoption in the corporate world until the mid to late 1990's. Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, AOL, HoTMaiL, Yahoo!, and Blackberry grew the number of email accounts from 3 million in 1991 to 400 million by 1999. It is estimated that over 4.3 billion accounts exist as of today, sending nearly 200 billion emails per day (or 47 emails per account per day).

Of the 4.3 billion email accounts, approximately 1 billion are business accounts, sending 116 billion emails per day (or 116 emails per account per day). As an engineering consultant, I average 200 to 300 emails per day, which is nothing compared to my friends in the IT world who can easily exceed 1,000 emails per day.

Depending on which study you read, the numbers vary slightly. However one thing is quite clear; email consumes a significant amount of time in the workplace. One study estimates that employees check email on average 36 times per hour. Another study estimates that nearly 30% of an employee's work day is spent in the inbox.

The intent of this post is not to condemn email. Without email, businesses would still be using USPS, carrier pigeons, or even worse...fax machines! Rather, the goal is to summarize a few simple productivity-boosting techniques that can allow you to optimize your use of email and generate the most value out of your work day.

Here are a few tips I recommend to increase your emailing productivity. I will not claim creative rights on any of these ideas, but can attest to the validity of these methods. Far wiser productivity gurus have walked before me, and this list would not have been possible without help from 43 Folders, David Allen, Ari Meisel, Tim Ferriss, and many others. None of these recommendations are one-size-fits-all or a draconian set of rules "thou shalt" follow. They are just recommendations from an OCD engineer who has empirically tested dozens of email hacks.

Turn off all email notifications. PERIOD. A notification, by definition, is meant as a timely alert of an important or rarely-occurring event. With hundreds of emails a day, does an email notification really tell you anything you don't already know? While reading this post I can bet most of you have received at least one email, so what value does a notification have if you already know you have a message? I recommend you turn off all email notifications. This means the badges on your smart phone app, vibrations, bings, system-tray notifications, popups, and anything else that can notify you that your inbox has a message. This is also essential if you want to implement the next recommendation.
Check your email on YOUR schedule. Closing your email client while you are working on a task can greatly increase productivity. Only open your email when you have come to a stopping point in your task. Personally, I try to check my email once every 30 minutes. The distraction from reading even a single email during work can cause five to ten minutes of lost productivity due to having to re-focus on the task at hand. For more on scheduling your work throughout the day, I highly recommend the Pomodoro Technique.
Process to Zero... I have found that combining the Inbox Zero and Getting Things Done (GTD) philosophies into a single technique works best for me. This means that when I open my email client (on my schedule...remember), I will read every email and decide whether I need to Delete, Delegate, Do or Delay it. Delegated and Delayed items are filtered into my GTD tasks, and Deleted or Do emails are obsolete because they are completed or in the trash. At the end of this process, my inbox will have zero messages in it. I then close my email client and get back to work. I should also add that I have recently implemented a fifth category thanks to Ari Meisel, Automate.
Get rid of fancy automated inboxes. Google calls it "Priority Inbox", Outlook calls it "Focused Inbox", and I am sure there are others. In general, I feel these inbox solutions are akin to putting a My Little Pony band-aid on a gaping flesh wound. People who are unable to successfully manage their email will grasp at any "innovation" that purports to simplify their inbox. I can assure you that if you are have trouble managing an email inbox already, you will be no more successful by implementing an automated inbox, which only creates multiple folders and filters.
Use Filters, Rules, and Templates. After condemning fancy automated inboxes, I want to stress that automation is still a good thing. The difference between recommendations #4 and #5 is that you can control rules/filters/templates. If you find yourself writing the same (or similar) email multiple times, if you always move a particular type of email to the same folder, or if the same action is derived from a particular type of email, then I highly recommend finding ways to automate or simplify your action. Computers excel at routine and predictable tasks. Humans excel with thinking creatively, interpersonal interactions, and big picture ideas. Filters, email rules, and email templates allow the computer to do what it is good at while freeing up your time to do what you are good at.
Declare Email Amnesty! If you want to get control of your inbox, reading this article and thinking about the 10,000 unread emails probably gives you anxiety. This isn't good. Instead of fretting over correcting the sins of the past, declare email amnesty and be a better inbox steward henceforth. I recommend taking every email in your inbox and moving it to a new folder that you will ignore. If something truly important was in those emails, you still have a copy; otherwise you have given yourself a clean slate from which to start your new life!
Now I would be lying if I told you I have mastered each of these techniques and that I have sleighed the email dragon. I am always honing in and optimizing these techniques as well as experimenting with new ones. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions please post them below. I would love to hear what has worked for you!

References:

http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Email-Statistics-Report-2013-2017-Executive-Summary.pdf
http://www.inventorofemail.com/history_of_email.asp
http://mashable.com/2012/08/01/email-workers-time/
https://www.atlassian.com/time-wasting-at-work-infographic