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Email Overload - Not At My Desk All Day
illuscat | Mar 26 2007
My problem is with communication. I'm an academic teaching at two different schools and working another job directing an educational program. I have three different workplaces and no office (except at home). Between my different roles, I get a lot of email and a good deal of voicemail in a given week. During the workday, I'm often in the classroom, in transit, or in seclusion, trying to get papers graded (I teach writing). Because of this, I'm admittedly hard to reach. I feel terrible for making people wait for my responses, and I worry that it causes my professional reputation to suffer, but unless I ignore my other duties, I just can't devote an hour or more each day to getting that inbox to empty. This is complicated by the fact that many things in my inbox are requests I might have to say no to. How do I respond to the 12th student this week to ask for a last-minute letter of recommendation when deep down, I know I don't have the time to do it? The result is that my email has become an unhappy, guilt-ridden place to visit, reminding me of all the people who probably think I have some somehow failed them. Then, even when I do have time, I just don't want to go there... Any suggestions? 10 Comments
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 This, though, caused organizational problems...Submitted by unstuffed on April 6, 2007 - 9:12am.
msanford;8852 wrote:
This, though, caused organizational problems for me because I do get a fair bit of email and I have a habit of leaving my mail client (Mail.app) running all the time. I would lose track of which emails I had dealt with since I would often read one and then forget about it... Aha, I have a clever-trousers answer for this one too. ;) You see, once you've read the emails (in a clump, when you check your Inbox), you should process them the same way you process your In Tray. Some get deleted, some get dumped into your Archive, some get stashed in an Action mailbox (or one of several) and some get dealt with straight away. So they don't lie about in your Inbox. Read Merlin's Email Ninja: Inbox Zero series for further info. I found these quite illuminating, and I've changed the way I handle my email now. I'm not perfect, but it's a whole lot better. In the same way that you go through the In Tray and process to empty, you should go through your email Inbox and process to empty. It really helps. » POSTED IN:
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