Brad, breaking the email addiction is very hard. Congratulations for trying and sharing your experiences with us. What makes it hard for so many is our wor flow. For some we have Service Level Agreements to follow, important projects that we have to stay on top of, we could be waiting on a time sensitive answer, etc. To help me manage my email addiction I try to make use of Microsoft Outlooks email pop notifier. This way I can monitor incoming emails in real time while I work. I still have to check every two or three hours but I just check and do not respond. Also, I take work breaks to switch tasks or whatever and at these times I scan emails looking for important items. I sometimes even take a minute or two (no more than thagt) and answer those emails that are quick.
James Robert Lay
· 11 months ago
Rock on bro! I just got back from a two week vacay in Paris (12/26 - 1/4) and checked email just twice for about a total of 20 minutes... basically just cleared out spam to make life easier when I got back.
My wife loved this and so did I.
The girls at the office took care of everything and only called in twice for a total of 5 minutes just checking in. The entire team did a super job while I was almost entirely MIA. They totally rock and will be taken care of.
When I got in this morning, I kid you not, I checked two weeks worth of email in about 1.5 hours.
Regarding my RSS feeds, I just skimmed them (about 45 new ones had come in) and responded only to yours as it was relevant.
Thanks for the post and update and good luck as you continue to manage Mr. Email.
Side note: my wife would kill me (has killed me) checking email in bed first thing in the morning... that has become a "no no".
Brad
· 11 months ago
@David - Yeah, good point. We've found that even for our applications that setting an adequate 'time to respond' works for alot of our customers. As long as they know their emails are being received and a response with a timeframe comes back, they are generally happy.
@JRL - Very nice! I'm jealous. And my wife isn't allow to complain about email in bed because her iPhone is on the nightstand next to her. She's a Tetris junkie. ;)
All Comments
My wife loved this and so did I.
The girls at the office took care of everything and only called in twice for a total of 5 minutes just checking in. The entire team did a super job while I was almost entirely MIA. They totally rock and will be taken care of.
When I got in this morning, I kid you not, I checked two weeks worth of email in about 1.5 hours.
Regarding my RSS feeds, I just skimmed them (about 45 new ones had come in) and responded only to yours as it was relevant.
Thanks for the post and update and good luck as you continue to manage Mr. Email.
Side note: my wife would kill me (has killed me) checking email in bed first thing in the morning... that has become a "no no".
@JRL - Very nice! I'm jealous. And my wife isn't allow to complain about email in bed because her iPhone is on the nightstand next to her. She's a Tetris junkie. ;)