How to be ‘e-resilient’ – tips for managing email

Reflective pause

How does your current approach to managing email impact your productivity and well-being? What adjustments could you make to improve your email management habits?

Professionals typically spend one to three hours per day managing work-related emails (Hearn, 2019), although this varies by role, type of work and personal habits. Remote workers may spend even more time reading, responding to, and organising emails. Unfortunately, email has become a major workplace stressor, contributing to reduced productivity, increased burnout and disengagement.  Failing to disconnect from email during evenings, weekends and holidays can also threaten work-life balance and wellbeing. Many organisations now offer guidelines to promote healthy email management and enhance ‘e-resilience’ among employees. 

Russell and colleagues (2023) provide some useful strategies for optimising email management to safeguard both wellbeing and job performance.  These involve:

• Respecting and enforcing work-email boundaries: e.g. using automatic replies, scheduling emails to be sent during work hours and removing pressure to respond outside these hours.

• Regularly triaging emails: e.g. frequently reviewing and dealing with emails promptly and allocating sufficient time for this task.

• Observing email etiquette: e.g. being polite and considerate in email exchanges, providing clearly actionable points and intentions. 

Some other tips include:

• Set specific times for checking email: Constantly checking email is disruptive. Schedule specific times during the day to check and respond to emails, rather than reacting to every notification as it arrives.

• Use email management tools: Use filters, labels, and folders to organise incoming emails. This will help prioritise important messages and reduces clutter.

• Keep up with digital housekeeping: Periodically review and declutter your inbox by archiving and deleting old emails. 

• Switch off email notifications: They impair concentration and can induce stress and anxiety.

• Limit unnecessary emails: Avoid contributing to email overload (your own and other people’s) by sending unnecessary messages. Be concise and clear in your communication to reduce back-and-forth exchanges. Limit the use of ‘OK’ and ‘thank you’ emails – instead, use ‘thank you in advance’.

• Unsubscribe from irrelevant mailing lists: Regularly review your subscriptions and unsubscribe from newsletters or mailing lists that no longer provide value.

• Practice the two-minute rule: If you can respond to an email in two minutes or less, do it immediately. This prevents emails from piling up in your inbox.

• Recognise ‘switching costs’: Be aware that ‘switching’ between email and other types of work can add up to two hours to your working day.

• Develop ‘rules of engagement’: Establish clear boundaries for email use and decide when you will read emails and when you will switch off.

• Manage other people’s expectations: An ‘out of office’ notification should mean just that.

• Take email vacations: If possible, disconnect for half a day a week, or even longer. 

• Use the phone: Consider picking up the phone if emails are >3 paragraphs, or if messages fill the screen (>2 paras).

• Reflect on your email strategies – are they purposeful and efficient, or reactive and habitual? Are you a constant checker of email? is this necessary?