Exploring Twitter early this morning, I was jolted to attention by
this headline:
We Need to Ban ‘Sorry For the Delay’ From
Our Email Vocabulary
Don’t apologize for not being glued to
your inbox.
Guilty! I admit to opening emails that way two or three times a day. Apparently, many others do too, and it turns out we are sabotaging ourselves.
The bottom line is that our well-intended
apology sets us up for failure later because it tells senders to expect
immediate action in the future. We are inadvertently damaging relationships,
sabotaging productivity, and depleting morale.
One study Dahl quoted said people open
emails within six seconds of arrival. Imagine the effect of that on
productivity and performance for someone who receives just 25 emails a day. How
many do you receive? Neuroscientists and psychologists can explain why we open
emails upon arrival—something about endorphins and connecting with people—but,
let’s focus today on understanding the impact of the bad habit and what we can
do to stop it.
In addition to setting unrealistic
expectations, we sabotage our own productivity by reacting to every email with
urgency. A study in Fast
Company said it takes 23
minutes and 15 seconds to re-focus on what we were doing before we opened the
email or handled any other interruption. No wonder people are stressed out by
the end of the work day!
Obviously, the impact of over-promising
unrealistic expectations to others is two-fold. First, we prompt them to wait for
our responses, which may reduce their productivity. When our response cannot be
immediate, we will have let them down. Second, we stress over the prospect of
letting others down.
A second impact of reacting to every email
with urgency is sabotage to our own productivity. It takes 23 minutes and 15
seconds to re-focus on what we were doing before we opened the email or handled
any other interruption. No wonder people are stressed out by the end of the
work day!
All that over-promising and under-performing
means we are not living All-In.
I think this morning's tweet shook me
because I try to live All-In by staying focused. Luckily, there are relatively
simple things to do to improve. If you are ready to stop the bad habit and get
back to living All-In, join me in taking these actions:
- Stick to your plan for the day. Don’t let projects take longer than required by accepting email interruptions as urgent demands on your time.
- Identify which emails need immediate action, some action soon, or no action at all. Try to read emails one time only, and after that one time, delete, file, assign a date, or forward to someone else to handle. Make it easy by setting up email rules so prioritizing is automated.
- Set a schedule for reading emails at work. Would every two hours suffice? Set aside time upon arrival at work, mid-morning, before lunch, mid-afternoon, end of day. Unless you are in the middle of an emergency, discipline yourself to wait.
- Stop apologizing for reasonable response times. If necessary, consider replying to advise of your expected action and completion date when needed, but do not begin emails with an apology for not being at someone’s beck-and-call every minute.
What do you think?
If you have additional ideas to help break
the bad habit, please share. The more, the better!
