Carlson’s Law teaches us that a task done in a continuous manner takes less time than it would with interruptions. That’s because every time you start or restart a task, it takes time to focus and find where you left off. Constantly going from one thing to another consumes a lot of time and energy in our brains.
Now more than ever, when it’s common practice to copy anyone and everyone on all work emails, we frequently have between 50 and 150 low-value-added emails to read and respond to each day. Not to mention email ping-pong, which leads to pointless, time-wasting exchanges like these:
📧 Attached is the study you requested.
📧 Got it, thanks.
📧 Can you give me some feedback or approve?
📧 It definitely needs some changes.
📧 Like what?
... 🤦♂️
Put them all together and these types of email exchanges will end up costing you hours, or even days, over the space of a year. Let’s look at how we can reduce all this to just one exchange.
Write or Reply to Emails With Minimal but Clear Information
FYI/Approval needed/Action needed. From now on, when you write an email, you should ideally include at least one of these three headings to clarify your intentions.
Here’s the same example from above, reworked:
📧 Approval needed: Attached is the study you requested. If any changes are needed, please reply to this email with a list by end of day tomorrow.
Get to “Inbox Zero”
Set aside three or four times a day for checking emails—no more. Ideally, schedule your first email session for after your morning sprint. Sort your emails for anything particularly urgent, and deal with those as a priority. Then, as we discussed previously, apply the two-minute rule for the rest of your emails.
Unsubscribe from those mailing lists that you never read. Google's Gmail lets you do this with one click, but it doesn’t always work for certain websites that deliberately complicate the process. Mark as read any informative emails that you want to keep for later.
The goal is to get to “inbox zero,” meaning no unread emails, at least once a week.
I always like to do this on Friday, just so I can have peace of mind for the weekend and the satisfaction of knowing I got my work done.
In an attempt to lose as little time as possible on emails, I practice fairly rigorous inbox management: I don’t leave anything unread, and I make a decision as soon as I’ve read an email (delete, archive, respond if less than two minutes, or bookmark). I always try to reach inbox zero at the end of the day or week. I try not to ever let myself lapse with this system, because once you start to have unread emails, it’s so hard to catch up again! — Charlotte, team manager
Centralize All Your Email Addresses in One Inbox
If your company permits it, you can centralize your emails in Gmail. It’s quite simple to do in the Accounts and Import section of your Gmail settings.
Sort Your Emails Using Tags
For better readability, I configure my inbox so that my unread emails are displayed at the top of the window and the read emails are below. This is called “Priority Inbox” on Gmail; see how to set it up here.
When necessary, use the options to “star” an email or mark it as “important” and add VIP email addresses so you receive a notification as soon as a new message from them arrives.
There are different schools of thought, but unless you really want to, it’s not necessary to organize further and create multiple folders for archiving your emails. Search tools offered by Gmail or its competitors are generally quite powerful; you can find all your conversations and even your own notes in your account in an instant.
Let’s Recap!
As much as possible, try to do your work continuously by dealing with tasks one at a time, without jumping from one thing to another.
When you write emails, include clear information on your needs and expectations to avoid endless question-and-answer exchanges.
Try to get to “inbox zero” at least once or twice per week.
I hope that going forward, you’ll feel more confident reducing the time you spend on emails. Good luck putting this into practice—remember, it’s all about setting up productive habits. I believe in you!
Great job! You’ve finished the first part of the course! Now you can take a moment to breathe, maybe go grab a cup of coffee! That usually takes a good 25 minutes…remember the Pomodoro method! Then you can dive into the quiz. We’ll meet again in part two of the course, where we’ll discuss organization and planning. See you soon!
