Conquer your email in 3 steps

One of my coaching mentors is notorious for proudly proclaiming that she spends minimal time checking email.  Clearly, she’s not a doctor.  When I was still in practice, I would sometimes get over 50 emails in a single day to my work inbox alone.  That’s in addition to patient related messages in the EMR and my personal email accounts.   It’s no wonder email is a source of stress and frustration for many of us.  Here is how I stay on top of my email.  

Step 1:  Do a massive clean out.   

If you can find a chunk of time, it can be helpful to clean house when it comes to your email.  Chances are there is stuff sitting in there that is no longer relevant and could just be deleted right now.   Going through this process can also help you as you start to think about how you want to organize important messages by creating and using folders.  You will realize what kinds of messages you get, which ones you actually care about and read, which ones you don’t, and which ones aren’t even relevant to you at all.   It’s helpful to know all of this.  You can do this slowly over time, but I recommend you just sacrifice several hours, on 1 or 2 weekend days if necessary, and get it done.

Step 2:  Deal with messages (don’t just look at them)

So now that you’ve done a clean out, and you’re ready to start fresh, how can you keep your inbox and other folders from blowing up again?  You have to perform some housekeeping and the more you do up front, the less you will need to do on a day-to-day basis.  These are some tricks I find helpful: 

• If applicable, create rules that will automatically sort new messages into sub-folders.  This is especially helpful for “junk” mail that you know you are always going to delete.  This also allows for “batching” when reviewing and  deleting messages.
• Unsubscribe or ask to be removed from email lists (the equivalent of UNSUBSCRIBE).  This will reduce the total number of emails coming in.
• Deal with it once and be done with it, whenever possible.  Read it, do it, respond to it, whatever.  And then delete it.
• Schedule or plan for designated email management time during your day or week.  

Step 3:  Manage your thinking

For me, this is the most important step.  Creating rules and carving out a designated time for email is easy enough.  But you may find it harder to decide what to do with the messages in your inbox.  Should you delete them or save them for later?  Should you stay on a list, just in case?   This is where you need to look at what is going on in your brain, if you want to stay on top of your inbox.  Here are some strategies:

• Be clear on your priorities- for example, at one point my institution was searching for a new Chair of pediatrics.  I was getting a slew of emails with bio sketches for various candidates and calendar invites to watch them speak.  The “Good Citizen” in me would think “this is really important, and I should be engaged in this process”.  But spending my time reviewing Chair candidate bio sketches and attending their zoom presentations, wasn’t going to move me closer to any of my goals.  Your time is limited, so you need to make sure you are very thoughtful about how you want to spend it.  If the email isn’t directly relevant to your goals, you should consider deleting it and move on without looking back.
• Get really honest with yourself- are you ever going to read that e-newsletter or watch that video?  Are you ready to apply NOW for that grant or that leadership program?  Chances are, the answer is NO to these questions, or you would already have done it.  Don’t let those emails sit around junking up your inbox or any folder for that matter.  Make a decision- YES or NO.  If the decision is NO, delete the message, move on and don’t look back.
• Get creative.  What works for one person may not work for someone else.  Brainstorm all the ways you can make managing email easier for YOU.  And then try making some of those changes.  See what works and what doesn’t.  Keep working at it until you find a system that works well for YOU.

We have a tendency to personify email as a villain that plagues us every day.   But the truth is, you are in control.  You can keep or delete emails as you please.  You can move messages into folders, whose names you get to choose.  With few exceptions, you can decide not to receive those emails in the first place.  But you do have to invest a little energy from time to time.  The concept of entropy applies- there is the tendency for a gradual decline into disorder.  But with some effort, you can prevent that from happening and stay in control of your inbox.