I spend way too much time with email. One aspect of this is checking it to many times a day. The other is my inability to keep my in box empty. There are solutions though.
I have read a number of time management ideas that suggest making a commitment to only checking your email once a day. You set aside some amount of time, put it on your schedule, and stick to it. I don’t think I need to get that rigid with this and I realistically would not be able to have that much discipline. Still, I think I should try it for at least a week to see how it changes how I do things. I do believe it is valuable to shake things up once in awhile. This helps you see yourself, your habits, and how your approach things in a new and often helpful way.
The other is to be a little bit more aggressive in just dealing with the daily onslaught. Every email that I open, deal with it. Answer, throw out, or put somewhere else (and don’t just make a I don’t want to have an inbox with emails folder). At times I have been able to attain some success with this method but I have slipped far from that lately.
