Many of us resist the idea of limiting the total amount of time we spend on email. Instead, we allow the volume of email we receive, and the number of messages that require a response, to dictate how much of our day goes to the endless cycle of send and receive.
But letting email set the pace and structure of your working life makes sense only if answering email is the single most important part of your job. Unless you work on the frontlines of customer support, there’s probably a lot of other work that’s more important – even if it doesn’t feel as urgent as the message that just arrived. Committing to a minimum and maximum amount of time you’ll spend on email instead allows you to undertake focused work when you need to – and just as important, to take actual downtime.
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