Help or hindrance?
It seemed a
good idea when it first came along; you can get messages very quickly to people
and it only costs time - you’re paying your provider anyway. Most people get a
lot less snail mail these days than they used to but the email they now get
more than makes up for it. Recently after a few days of not being able to
access mine I had 666 (yes, scary number) messages waiting for me. My work account
often clogs up. I really daren’t be away from it for too long – even if I’ve
put on an out of office message.
Email stress
I’ve come across
a few examples of this just this week. A student apologised for replying late
to one of my mails – she claimed that looking at her emails was adding to her
stress. A colleague told another colleague to contact him by text – he wasn’t
looking at emails at the moment because they were preventing him from getting other
things done. I myself wrote a note to a colleague on paper as I didn’t want to
open my email. It can be a distraction and a bit of a Pandora’s box.
We often quake
before we look at our inboxes, especially if we haven’t been there for a while.
I do this too, but sometimes I also find it quite exciting.
A healthy attitude
“Promise me,”
said our HR business partner at a recent Senior Lecturer day, “that you won’t
look at your email for the first hour of the day.” This prompted a positive discussion
about time management and how what comes into our mail boxes is actually from other
people’s agendas. Sure, we need to work with others and what is important for
one person is possibly important for others too. But all in its own time.
Let’s do what’s
important and urgent first, what’s important second, what’s merely apparently
urgent next and then see what’s left.
Today I’m
writing (aka researching) for two hours and then intend to have one brief sweep
through my work email, write for another two hours and have a brief sweep through
my personal accounts.
