A Kick In The Career: Three and a Half Ways to Cope With Your Email Onslaught

I get hundreds of emails a day, and only a few of them are non-business related. It’s simple enough to delete the ones from a friend with whom you just had dinner last night claiming that they are stuck in Budapest and need you to wire some cash. Also the offers from prospective Russian brides go right into the “Mark as Unread” folder. You could put them into spam, but you might want to save them for a day when you’re on the fence about the past twenty-five years of married life.

You can be sure the constant barrage of email is a serious issue when the Harvard Business Review publishes an eBook called Work Smarter, Rule Your Email. (  http://hbr.org/product/work-smarter-rule-your-email/an/11855E-KND-ENG )

Here are a few strategies for staying sane around the daily dose of digital deliveries.

1)   Switch off mail notification. Nothing turns you into a Pavlovian-brained tongue-wagger like hearing a little blip (or the theme from Shaft, if that’s what you use) every time a new message arrives. You feel compelled to click on every new blip immediately. It’s like the ad for the new Hot Wheels track you saw as a kid: it must be gotten NOW. Email is there for your convenience, not theirs. Get to it a few times a day as you see fit, and let the Devil take the rest. (Most of them hold the potential for opening up a tenth circle of hell anyway.)

2)   Take half a day and unsubscribe. First, try not to beat yourself up for having subscribed to the plethora of websites and newsletters that clutter up your inbox. How did they get so numerous? Maybe you foolishly donated to your friend’s Kickstarter campaign for his documentary on “Drywall Through the Ages” and unknowingly got on a list. Maybe you subscribed to a site back when you were considering becoming a Wiccan and that generated a ton of spam. Pore through the unwanted stuff and unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe. Then watch the volume go down on the screen and in your brain.

3)   Pick up the phone. People are afraid to use the phone anymore. Everyone is so used to hiding behind the keyboard. So catch them off guard and say what you want to say. Get in, get out, nobody gets hurt. And nobody sends email. Of course, you will probably be sent to voicemail, but let’s not assume the worst.

3 ½) Create poetry. If you’re going to be a slave to email, why not make it as distinctive and flowery as you possibly can?  Remember: many great artists of our time have had their letters published as books. Why not you? Pick a few close associates to experiment with, and turn the stale business of business into a tome for the ages.

After all, which is more memorable? This:

“When your email arrived, the sun had slowly risen to inexorably burn off a layer of mist that had been clinging to the cars outside my window. I read your text with great anticipation, remembering the start I felt in my heart when you had previously suggested that we may dine together anon.”

Or this:

“Thanks, got it. Lunch tomorrow.”

May these three and a half tips enrich your email experience!