Declare Independence from your Clutter
5 Ways To Curtail Your Email
Diving into your smart phone is becoming a social cue of what to do with any free moment available. If you’re sitting somewhere and not on your phone, do you feel strangely unimportant? Hopefully not, but how has it come to this? Extra moments and time spent waiting is great for making use of message checking and increasing productivity, but beware of the compulsion to constantly check and respond to messages. On one hand it can make you more efficient and able to get things done, on the other, it can make you a slave to the constant stream of incoming messages. But once started, how do you stop it? Here are some solutions:
Adjust Notifications: You don’t need to hear the alert for every incoming email. Maybe just the one from your boss or a particular customer. Adjust your settings accordingly. It’s important to know how to manage your alerts for messages and social media otherwise they will take you over.
Designate Time: Don’t constantly check and reply. Designate periodic times during the day to check and reply to email and stick with it. Soon your receivers will learn your system and you will then be in the drivers seat responding only according to your schedule.
Track Time: If you think email might be overtaking you, do a simple check. Set a timer whenever your on email during the course of a typical day. See how much time you spend receiving and responding to messages. If it’s beyond what you deem necessary, make appropriate adjustments.
Unsubscribe: Much of the email we receive is truly not worth the time it takes away from our lives. Rather than just erasing a message, scroll to the bottom and unsubscribe.
Find an Alternative: Don’t just always default to email. Consider other options, can you send a text message, call them on the phone or do something truly out of the box–have a face to face conversation!
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