How many messages are sitting in your email inbox right now? How many of them have you already opened, glanced at, maybe even fully read? When you next look at your email, will you pay more attention to those messages or to the new, unread ones?
If you’re like most people, you probably have at least a few emails sitting in your inbox in a kind of limbo state. These messages can cause a slow but steady drain on your energy and attention, even when you think you’re ignoring them. As they accumulate, part of your brain continues to register their presence while you’re reading new messages. This can turn into a feeling of guilt, fatigue, or overwhelm.
Most people tend to park emails in the inbox, read but not responded to, for three reasons:
You need more time: complicated questions, problems, or situations often require more time than you feel you have when you’re scanning your inbox. David Allen’s two-minute rule is a useful guideline here: anything that will take longer than two minutes to respond to, should be moved to your to-do list (which might include an ACTION folder in your email program, so those messages you’ll be dealing with are moved out of your central inbox.)
You need to make a decision: you may not yet know if you want to attend an upcoming event or participate in a project. Again, these items should be moved to your to-do list or your calendar so that you can make the decision within the appropriate time window. I often use Nudgemail to send myself a reminder about an upcoming event closer to the time when I need to make a final decision.
You’re resisting someone, something, or a situation. If you resent having to participate on a particular project, you may delay responding to related messages as a kind of (often unconscious) rebellion. Of course, putting off the tasks that you’re resisting usually just makes them more difficult, feeding your resistance. These can be the trickiest emails to diagnose and deal with if you’re not already aware of how you feel about the person or project. If you discover resistance in your inbox, set aside a specific time to deal with the project or person, and reward yourself for dealing with it directly.
Making decisions about how you will handle those emails that are just sitting in your inbox will bring greater clarity, focus, and energy to the time you spend on email and to the rest of your day.