Prioritising e-mail

I had a discussion with some colleagues about the best way of handling e-mail messages. The most heared problem is that people tend to get distracted by the "you have new mail" signals their computers are configured to flash, whenever an e-mail message arrives in their inbox. Once new mail arrives, those signals coerce the user to immediately check to see what's new. This greatly distracts people from their task at hand.

E-mail is just like the telephone. A dictator of your time and attention. When I'm talking to someone and the phone rings, it's extremely annoying when the conversation is stopped in favour of answering the phone. It's even more annoying when the phone call drags on and appears to be of no added value whatsoever. The main problem is that this consumes time of at least two people who could have otherwise had a more productive discussion.

New mail messages take up only your own time. But, that doesn't make it less of a problem. Once you've dealt with the mail, you'll need extra time to get focused again on the task at hand. And the question remains whether you can get back on the train of thoughts that you jumped off of when the new mail arrived. I've known myself to get distracted so much that I couldn't remember where my thoughts were going for several hours. Talk about loss of productivity.

There is an alternative: Switch off the new mail announcements and make a plan. For example, plan to check your mail (1) in the morning right after starting up the computer, then (2) just after lunch and (3) just before going home. To help me process my mail as efficiently as possible I tend to classify my mail according the flowchart below.


(Click on the image for a larger view)

Have fun, don't get stressed out.