Implement just five practices so that email can once again become a tool for effective work:
- Turn off notifications and instead check your email hourly
- Move every email out of your inbox the first time you read it
- Use the search functionality with search operators to re-find emails
- Set up just two email folders and use shortcuts to archive emails there
- Avoid processing irrelevant or less important emails individually
Our team at Zarvana — a company that teaches research-backed time management practices — set out to see if there is a data-supported way to reduce the 2.6 daily hours spent on email without sacrificing effectiveness. What we found surprised even us: we realized we could save more than half of the time we currently spend on email, or one hour and 21 minutes per day.
https://hbr.org/2019/01/how-to-spend-way-less-time-on-email-every-day