Slave To Urgency
Slave To Urgency
Most people are a victim of this to some degree.
One of the things that stands out to people about my personal productivity habits is the way I manage email. I haven’t written about this in a while so I felt like I needed to bring it up again.
Let me be super clear about this, too. I have multiple email inboxes for multiple projects. I can see all of them in one place, but I don’t check them all with the same frequency.
I only check email about 2 times a day, tops. Once in the morning and once (usually) in the late afternoon or evening. It’s not set in stone. I also don’t sit in my inbox until all the email is gone. I love seeing inbox 0, but it’s not mandatory for me to move on with my day.
The common, cliché language around this is “don’t start your day with someone else’s work.” Or maybe you’ve heard: “your email inbox is everyone else’s to-do list for you.”
I think these sentiments hold some truth, but they’re incomplete. They don’t leave room for the places where your work dependencies overlap with others—and that’s what collaboration and partnering are all about, right?
I check email for a limited amount of time (30-60 mins) and then that’s it. That means I need to scan for crises or important things and get back to my day. The rest can wait or just expire.
Frequency and Urgency
Anyway, the main thing to understand here is the frequency and urgency with which you’re checking email. It’s not that you have to ignore it or turn your head away from the 12 burning priorities waiting for you in your inbox—that’s careless.
To make this point, I’m going to share a piece of the email footer I like to use.
I didn’t write this myself, I stole it from Neal Bicker (@nbconsulting). So, if you like it and want to steal it from me, please send him a big thank you.
Here it is in text form so you can copy/paste:
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I CHECK EMAIL NO MORE THAN TWICE A DAY.
The best way to reach me is always by phone/text: 215.933.2269
Living in a state of continuous partial attention robs you of your true potential.
Workers on average make it only 11 minutes into a project before being distracted by email, and it takes workers 16-25 minutes to refocus on their work after dealing with email. (UC Irvine) Your IQ falls 10 points when you’re fielding constant emails, the same loss you’d experience if you missed an entire night’s sleep and more than double the loss of someone smoking marijuana. (University of London) Workers spend 28% of their workweek on email, meaning that’s 13 fewer hours we can spend being productive. (McKinsey)
I feel like this email footer makes a strong case for us workers to not let ourselves be distracted by email.
It often feels like we need to respond right away but it’s also often the case that we don’t have to.
What’s interesting to me about this is how it feels when a notification pops up. For some weird reason, it’s common to feel a tremendous urge to respond to it. To make that little red dot go away.
What is it about those little notifications that make things seem so important?
This is a classic case of confusing importance with urgency.
The best model I’ve found for distinguishing the two is the Eisenhower Decision Matrix.
Some things are urgent. Some things are important. Some things are both (we call those crises).
Email, just like social media apps on your phone, build addictive habits that can interrupt your day and lower your productivity and focus. It’s your job to grip the bull by the horns and manage your workday.
Most people let notifications happen to them. Most people are slaves to their phones. Most people are slaves to other people’s urgencies.
Go ahead, steal that email footer. Check your email for a deliberate amount of time each day. Turn off notifications. Be in control of your inbox.