Stop Letting Email Control Your Work Day

Email is a major contributor to employees’ perceptions of feeling stressed or overwhelmed. We need to learn to make email work for us and re-frame it as a tool for executing on our priorities. But the first step is having clear priorities. Take a step back and look at the work you do: how much if it is urgent? How much of it is important? Give yourself permission to drop tasks that are neither important nor urgent, and spend more time on tasks that are important but not urgent. The benefit of doing this inventory and categorization is that it prepares you to make meaningful to-do lists and better answer the question, “How is my time best spent right now?” With your priorities and goals clear, your to-do list refined, and your calendar feeling slightly more like your own, you can use your email inbox more strategically. Taking the time to be thoughtful about our actions and responses can ultimately leave us with more time and more bandwidth to do our jobs well — and be happier outside of work as well.