Email has proven itself as an essential tool for professional communication, but it can also be a major source of distraction that ruins moments of concentration and greater productivity.

Email and its love-hate relationship with productivityAccording to a study conducted by McKinsey Global InstituteThe average employee spends 28% of their workday reading and responding to emails, the equivalent of investing more than 11 hours per week on this task alone.

While email is essential for clearing roadblocks and moving projects forward, inefficient inbox management can impact both productivity and stress levels. Managing email efficiently is key to optimizing time and improving performance.

Slaves to notifications. One of the most common problems with email is the habit of constantly checking it. This (bad) habit stems from the fear of missing important messages or not being informed of response updates. Using push notifications makes the problem worse and constantly interrupts concentration and workflow.

This constant checking not only wastes time, it also disrupts concentration spans. Each notification interruption requires 13 to 20 minutes for the brain to refocus on the original task.

Unintentional multitaskingWhile receiving notifications does not necessarily mean viewing content, a study conducted by researcher Gloria Mark from the University of Irvine (California) revealed that participants spend an average of an hour and a half a day checking their emails, and on average they do so approximately 77 times a day.

This shift in focus on tasks causes cognitive overload similar to that produced by multitasking, making it difficult to maintain deep attention and affecting the efficiency of work time. Stanford University calculated that these constant interruptions reduce daily productivity by an average of 40%.

Grouping by time blocks. One strategy for minimizing interruptions to email checking is to use a time blocking system. This method creates blocks of time spread out throughout the day dedicated to reading and responding to emails scheduled at specific times of the day, rather than letting the inbox set the clock.

For example, some professionals choose to check their email three times a day: once in the morning, once in the middle of the morning, and once before the end of the workday. This strategy allows you to take time for email during these blocks and then return to other tasks on the list with a clear mind.

Check emails with natural pauses. Researcher Gloria Mark mentioned in her study, ‘Email Duration, Batch Processing, and Self-Interruption: Email Usage Patterns Related to Productivity and Stress You can also take advantage of the completion of a task to perform a quick email check.

While this may not be the most efficient way to manage time devoted to a task, it does create a series of natural pauses that are a much more sensible solution for those who tend to review it more than 70 times a day. Checking email during these natural transitions creates a fluid connection between tasks without sacrificing concentration.

Master FOMO Syndrome. Applying this strategy to manage email without losing the ability to respond to news helps reduce the stress associated with fear of missing out, or FOMO (for its acronym). fear of missing out).

It allows you to set the time of day and time allotted to checking email regularly without overdoing it, preventing that task from becoming a black hole of inefficiency that eats up all available time. Instead of letting email dictate the pace of work, letting tasks dictate when to check email helps employees maintain control over their workday, helping to increase their productivity and well-being.

At Xataka | The key to being more productive isn’t to do more things, but to identify where you’re wasting your time.

Image by Brett Jordan on Unsplash