Our last post, and many of our conversations with people who are working on improving their productivity, focus on the harmful effects of multi-tasking and the benefits of “single-tasking”. There are many strategies you can implement to prevent the temptation to multi-task. A good place to start is to decrease distractions. For many people, email is one of their biggest distractions and causes of multi-tasking.

How many times a day or an hour do you stop what you are doing to check your email, or (try to) write an email while you are speaking with someone or doing something else? If you have your email set up to send out a visual or sound alert every time a new email comes in, chances are you are switching back and forth between your email and other tasks very frequently. Have you ever paid attention to observe how long it takes you to get back to what you were doing after you have left it to check your email? If not, you might be very surprised to discover how much time you lose re-establishing your focus on the task you were working on.

Today, why not turn off your email alerts, and instead of checking email constantly throughout the day, designate a few specific times (two or three should be enough for most people, depending on the type of work you do) that you will process your email after completing a task and before starting the next one…instead of during. At the end of the day, see how it feels to have taken this one small step to reduce distractions and avoid multi-tasking. If you’re like me, you will feel like your day had more focus and control and you got more done.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by email? It may be time for an Email Intervention! Contact us to learn more.