Five tips to reduce email stress

[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1561373840259{padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #8cb5d4 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”19603″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]We all know the feeling. It has been a long and busy day at work and as you are about to turn off your computer you hear the familiar sound of yet another email dropping into your inbox. Your heart slowly starts to pump faster and while forcing yourself back in the office chair, you hold your breath and click on your inbox for the hundred and seventeenth time this day.

When email first got invented it had one purpose – to make communicating easier and more efficient, giving us the opportunity to spend more time on things that really mattered. Unfortunately, quite the opposite happened and today email has changed from being a helping hand to more of a stress factor in many peoples’ life’s. Does this seem familiar? Luckily, setting up boundaries for yourself can help significantly – we give you five ways to take back control over your inbox and reduce the email stress.

Related: Email stress – who to blame?

 

Turn off the notifications

If you are one of those people who gets a notification every time an email hits your inbox, you might want to reconsider your strategy. The constant pop-ups telling you to check your inbox is not doing any good. In fact, it is a highly expensive distraction to your brain’s limited ability to process incoming stimuli. Notifications are only useful if they have a meaningful purpose, giving you a clue that ‘here is an important email’. If not, it just becomes unnecessary background noise. You can optimise this by shutting the less important notices down. Decide which emails are important and must be answered right away – like the ones from your boss or important clients and keep these notifications on. But only these. This will limit your constant need for checking the inbox, and get you back in charge of your email – not the other way around.

 

Reduce inbox checking

A common problem is that many people check their email every minute of every day to not miss out on anything important. However, with unimportant notifications turned off, you no longer have to fear that you are missing out and you should consider reducing the number of times you check your email. Pick a number and stick to it. No matter if it is four, two or even one time a day, rules will help you take back control. Often people blame others for pressuring them to check their email all the time, but the fact is that the pressure we feel is actually caused by ourselves. It will not be easy in the beginning, but if you succeed you will have much more time to work, stop worrying and staying alert. Even half an hour switched off is beneficial.

Related:5 facts about email that often cause stress .

 

Unsubscribe from everything unimportant

We are getting spammed with commercials, boring newsletters and offer emails all the time, and the fact is that nearly 90% of us do not even read the emails. Most of the time they are just a distraction and contributes to you feeling overwhelmed and stressed out. This is why, you must take time from your busy schedule to go through your inbox and start unsubscribing from newsletters and company emails that only make you distracted. You will soon come to see that your inbox will look much more foreseeable.

 

Filter your inbox

Even though you might unsubscribe to half of your incoming emails, it sometimes feels good to clean up the inbox as well. Start by giving your email a spring cleaning session by filtering all the emails into different folders. This will ensure that you can find the right email in no time and your email will serve its real purpose by increasing the efficiency of your work. If you have the opportunity of setting up automatically folders, this will make the cleaning process even easier, letting the email system do everything for you.

 

The 3 seconds’ rule

Now, for those emails that actually get through to us, it can sometimes be difficult to decide what to do with them, causing unnecessary consideration time. That is why the ‘3 seconds’ rule’ might be helpful for people having trouble deciding. The rule is simple: You must force yourself to only spend 3 seconds to decide what to do with the specific email – respond, delete, achieve or put it on your to-do list. Hold on to your decision, and you will find the rule as a quick and easy way to plow through your inbox with every email taken care of in no time.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_toggle title=”SUBSCRIBE TO NORDIC IT NEWS” style=”simple” color=”black”]Make sure never to miss a story from Nordic IT.
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