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Devin is a recent graduate starting work in public accounting this July. He enjoys burritos, skiing, talking in the third person, and long walks on the beach. Visit Devin's personal website at 
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New here? Employee Evolution is a blog written by Ryan Healy. Ryan is a Co-Founder of Brazen Careerist, the webs #1 social network for young professionals. Ryan speaks with organizations on best practices for recruiting and retaining Generation Y and how to effectively use social media to reach your target market. To contact Ryan, please visit our contact page.
I’ve thought a lot (more) about how I operate since reading The 4-Hour Workweek. One big part of my life, and probably everyone’s reading this, is email. It was almost like a game refreshing Gmail, trying to spot the elusive ‘Inbox - (1)‘. I’ve stopped playing that game! I suggest you do, too.
The problem
When you’re constantly checking email (or constantly being distracted by some sort of notifier) either two things are wrong:
- You aren’t doing significant work - You’re bored, you have nothing better to do so you go to see if there’s something you can read, respond to, etc. Email was dictating me. It turned into my todo list. That’s wrong! I need to control my own tasks. Email shouts ‘urgent’ but not always ‘priority’. Unfortunately we treat it as such.
- You’re wasting time on a task that can be batched - Batching is putting together a lot of the same tasks into one dedicated activity. You don’t go shopping for an individual cucumber do you? You don’t run out to grab a bottle of ketchup when you notice you’re running low, right? No, you make your grocery list and go shopping maybe once or twice a month.
So why do we treat email like something that constantly needs to be addressed? Well, if you keep treating it like it’s a necessity it will become one. People will get used to instantaneous responses and continually flood you with (usually) unnecessary email.
The proposal
I’ve started doing this myself and I’ve realized the world won’t come crashing down on me. I only check my email 4 times each day.
- First-thing (8:00am) - See what the rest of the world (including EST) has left in my inbox for the day.
- Mid-day (12:00pm) - Now it’s time to see if there’s anything that came up in the morning that needs to be addressed this afternoon.
- End-of-day (4:00pm) - Has anything else come up? Any last things to take care of before business-end?
- In the evening (8:00pm) - Some things arise at dinner, not usually. This is when more personal emails come in (people came home, jumped on Facebook, etc.)
These regular intervals line up with everyone else’s day, right? You can focus on your major tasks of the day and take care of email when you’re good and ready.
I find I’m spending less time sitting around and more time focusing on my priorities. And guess what? Nothing has suffered. If people need me immediately they know my phone number (its on the bottom of every email!).
The reservations
Now, this might not work instantaneously in a business environment but you can certainly talk to your boss about it, right? Ask them to try it and show them how much more productive you can be. Let them know you don’t tolerate time wasters. Heck, do a dry run without telling anyone. You can check email like usual, but keep track of the number of things that absolutely had to be taken care of right then and there. If you see an email come in that can wait a few hours: ignore it.
The thing to keep in mind, though, is that communication is important. If you don’t communicate your intentions this might not work well for you. If people think they can still get to you at any time then they’re going to think something is wrong. Tim recommends you kindly let people know you’re addressing email at certain times so that you can better serve them. As always, they can call your cellphone with an emergency.
The challenge
Why not try it? Since I’m between jobs right now I haven’t had this experience with my new employer, but I intend to. It’s done well for me working at home (and with personal email). Like I said, instead of looking at my inbox for a task I now look at what’s really important (in my task list).
In fact, in the last few weeks I’ve found that 4:00pm usually doesn’t hold much email waiting for me. I can probably check three times a day, instead. That’s my goal starting next week.
So, I’m curious: why are, or aren’t, you going to try limiting your email to designated times?
Leave your thoughts here. (17 responses)
- 1 Pingback on Oct 12th, 2007 at 5:30 am
- 2 Pingback on Nov 13th, 2007 at 5:33 am
Great post, Devin. E-mail can be a big time killer for everyone. I think a lot of us seek the immediate gratification of getting e-mail. But, it’s a double-edged sword. I hate coming back to the office to piled up e-mails that I have to deal with first thing when I’ve been out of town.
To answer your question, for me, it’s hard for me to completely turn e-mail off during the day, because I frequently get someone-needs-to-deal-with-this-now requests that I have to respond to. But, keeping the system on so it can bug me with let’s-all-talk-about-this-silly-thing e-mails is distracting, to say the least. I’d rather read those e-mails, because they’re more entertaining - and they give my brain a “break.” So it’s a challenge to filter the stuff I have to deal with from the things I want to deal with. I’m working on it, like you are, but managing my time comes down to a lot more than just dealing with e-mail (though that’s a big one). I recently wrote a post at my blog talking about some of the ways I’ve discovered to help me get things done. I think it’s a lifelong process for everyone.
Thanks for the great article! I hope it sparks a great conversation.
Thanks for your comment, Tiffany. Often suggested (and in practice) is simply glancing at the notifications from Outlook or whatever you may use.
That way I can quickly see if it’s something I need to deal with right then. If not, I leave it until noon or the afternoon! By then the silly conversations may have settled down, right?
I struggle with it, too, because I work in publications. I get things that I need via email and need to send emails throughout the day, so I have to stay in there. That’s fine; the problem arises when 7 other emails are also waiting in my inbox aside from the 2-3 I actually am looking for. It is SO HARD to ignore them when I know how easy it would be to read, file and delete and see that beautiful empty inbox again. Oh empty inbox, how I love you…
I think that limiting my email reading to specific times of the day would lead to longer time to completion for projects, and would be less productive and not beneficial for my clients or associates.
I leave outlook open, as I’m sure maybe people do. It sits in the tray (or open on second screen, as I run dual screen) and if something comes in, I read it at the first possible moment. I won’t break concentration, or break a thought to read it, but as soon as I’ve completed a thought/step in a process, I will read the email. If a response is necessary, and it will take 1-2 minutes to gather the information and write the response, I do it immediately. Many times, working with associates in other groups in other timezones etc, a simple email that took 2 minutes to respond to could save a day on the backend.
However, I do have 3 rough times I try to write all my emails, and get to ones that require more than a minute or two of attention. Those times are about 8 (when I get in), 12 (before I take lunch) and about 4 (before end of day). Same times, probably for the same reason, long emails, ones that require filling out paperwork/attachments, anything that takes effort and isn’t a one off will be sent at one of those times. I have those times blocked out to take care of things like that, so I make use of it.
However, the difference is that if I tried to read and respond to every email at this time, I would feel bogged down each time I read them. I hate seeing email after email that needs action, and when you’re mixing some easy, some in depth, some responses, some just informational, you’re really just adding more work to those few times you check email, not to mention, you might have lost valuable time for something that would have taken 30 seconds to respond to.
The common question to that is “why don’t you just pick up the phone?� but when you’re on conference calls, client calls, whatever, it’s really easy to shoot a 30 second email out to someone without much distraction as opposed to waiting potential 3-4 hours to respond to that same email, and now you’re behind. I found that this hybrid method is the best approach for my role, though I’d expect it to be the best system for others as well.
This is an interesting conversation. I admit to being addicted to email, and it really does limit my productivity sometimes. I think checking email 4 times a day is both smart and practical. One thing Tim Ferriss mentions in “The 4-hour Work Week,” is to leave an automated reply message that states the times of day you check email. The message should be something like:
“Thanks for your email. I am attempting to increase my productivity by only checking email 4 times a day. Please excuse me if I do not respond promptly. I will get back to you as soon as possible.”
Tim suggests doing this because he only checks his email once a week, but it may be a good idea if you are still in the 4 times per day range.
-Ryan
If I actually had an automated email sent to me that said:
Thanks for your email. I am attempting to increase my productivity by only checking email 4 times a day. Please excuse me if I do not respond promptly. I will get back to you as soon as possible.
I would probably escalate to my manager if it were an employee within my company. A client, obviously can do what they want. There is absolutely no reason I need to read that someone is doing that. I would imagine that they could check and respond within the expected timeframe anyway, so there is no added benefit. My expectation is generally that if I send an email before noon (again, internally, client’s can do what they want) I’d have resolution or at least contact before close of business, if it’s after noon, before noon the following day. They can easily meet these reasonable expectations with the 4 times a day method. But if I started seeing double digit autoreplies about how often the person checks their mail, I would absolutely escalate to their manager, if not my own.
Autoreply should be for extended absence/vacation, not to go out with every single email that you receive.
Yes, it is probably a little over the top to do this if you are checking 4 times a day, but the goal of the whole thing is to get to the point where you only check once a day or once a week. If that is the case, the auto reply is neccesary.
Read the book.
Also, escalating to a manager seems a little ridiculous. Why not talk to the person?
Also, escalating to a manager seems a little ridiculous. Why not talk to the person?
I guess an implied “please don’t waste my time with this” should have been stated. I would ask the person what use they saw in notifying me that they wouldn’t read my email for, at most, 4 hours later and try to present my point. If it continued, I would have no problem seeking other resolutions. Especially if I saw this theme within an entire operations group or within division. We also use MS Communicator very frequently for some of these one offs, and having an autoreply 100% of the time would completely throw off the effectiveness of these communications tools. If they’re presenting an difficulty in getting my job done, I think this is something that, if affecting others I work with, should be brought up to our manager in our daily meeting. Essentially though, is that it is entirely excessive to have an autoreply when using the 4 time a day method. I can’t think of anyone that would call 4 hours unacceptable, which is the longest any one message should ever sit.
I have actually been looking through the book the last couple days at a nearby Borders as I’ve had time to kill, and the ideas are interesting. If I were in a position to do so, I’d love to check my email once a week. But in mine, and many other roles, those would simply be substituted with voicemails. Would you rather come to work with 10 emails that need response or 10 voicemails? I’ll take the email.
I understand the point, email can be cumbersome, it can slow people down, and waste time. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t extremely useful, or that there aren’t systems that can be put into place to streamline the process. Going to the entire extreme of using it once a week, for many roles and jobs out there, is not useful. Email is a tool, it just has to be used appropriately for the role and responsibility that you’re in.
I understand the value of only checking email occasionally, and I need to implement bits and pieces of that. However, the value of a prompt email reply can be tremendous when you are trying to sell yourself or when you are trying to get someone’s attention. You just have to take a look at who is emailing you, what they want, and what a good time frame for a response would be.
My big question is how on earth you manage to grocery shop just once or twice a month.
I’m with Christina. I go to the grocery store (or farmer’s market) every week, or during the summer every couple of days - gotta have fresh food.
And I will probably still always check my email much more than 4 times a day. While some things are freeing to do without - less stuff, less consumption, etc. email is not one of those things. I will say, however, that when there is no way to have access to my email, I do feel calm and not as stressed out… so maybe you are on to something!
@Nathan: it seems like you have a great hybrid model but I think I’ve been misleading. Ryan and I have left out details that put this concept in more context. For instance, you’re responding every 4 hours (or whatever) not just for your own productivity but to better serve that person.
That seems counter intuitive but it’s two-fold. You’re doing it so that they get a quality response where you have sat down and put together what they need (like you said, you sit down and think a bit more about what they need). Second, it makes them more productive because they start to eliminate unncessary tasks.
For example, Ryan will come to me with one email of things to do on the site that he’s thought of all morning. He thinks a bit more about everything that needs to be done and realizes maybe some things don’t need my immediate input (because he won’t get it!).
Also, the point is that people would call your phone with urgent tasks. If a manager needs a spreadsheet for their 11am meeting, they call and know I can get it to them. If they need a spreadsheet for their 3pm meeting, why do I need to see that email/voicemail now?
@Chuck: I agree but the inverse is that when I start replying to people at work within 3 minutes they’re going to start expecting it. I try to be conscious of who I can let sit and who can be responded to immediately.
@Christina: Planning + Costco = a few times a month.
I suffer(ed) from instant Gmail notification on my old laptop. On this one, however, I didn’t download it. Since being home and no longer on co-op, I’m always in class, in the car, or (gasp) actually interacting with people! And, wouldn’t you know, nothing has really suffered. I check my email before my first class (at 9:30 am), sometimes during my lunch break (11:30-1:30), and at night (usually 11 pm or later).
Good luck with your efforts, Devin. And enjoy some of the glorious sunshine this summer!
Thanks, Danielle. Enjoy those things you call “people.”
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