Timebox the inbox II
Email batching—get this done properly today
TLDR: Batch your emails into focused time blocks to reclaim hours, reduce stress, and boost productivity with a single habit shift.
Word count: 637
Read time: 3 mins
Emails, emails, more emails. We complain about them, we often say we hate them, we can’t live without them.
We spend hours each day reading, writing and thinking about emails. The consensus is that it’s around 2 hours each for most of the world’s one billion knowledge workers. That’s so much of human time, consciousness, experience, endeavour!
We learn much of our happiest and saddest news through this medium: a break-up, a promotion, an engagement, a job offer, the medical all-clear, a bereavement…
It’s one of the Three Big Distractions we need to be able to deal with to live a freer, more intentional life.
So there’s a good deal that can be done here. Make even just 10% improvement to the way you process and cope with email and you’ll feel it.
I think by now most of us know about this practice and agree that it’s very good practice. It's what our super-productive friends do. And I suspect that many people do it occasionally.
Batching
This is commonly considered best practice. I’ve never heard of and can’t think of a good argument against it. It’s hard with any productivity technique including this one to quantify the benefits but it will improve how much you get done, how well you do it and how you feel about that work. Not just for the 2 hours a day you’re on email in some capacity, but for the rest of the time when you’re less distracted by it. My finger in the air evaluation is that this single practice will give most people a 15-20% boost on a range of these important metrics.
Ok, so what is it, exactly?
Email batching: the practice of processing emails at designated times rather than responding to them as they come in, throughout the day.
The astute amongst you will have noted that email batching is just one particular instance of timeboxing. As such, it’s perfectly logical. You get emails. You have to deal with them. But rather than deal with them haphazardly, when they happen to hit your inbox, deal with them at times of your choosing and only those times.
Yet from various surveys I’ve run (on this blog and in corporate talks I’ve given), it’s a small minority (less than 20%) of people that consistently batch their incoming emails.
How to get going and keep going?
I’m going to be hyper specific.
You probably don’t (think you) have the time right now to carry out what follows. So, instead create a 30-min timebox - now - to get to it. Make that timebox now! And when you get to that 30-min timebox…
Decide how many times a day you really need to check emails. I recommend one or two sessions. Few people live lives of such urgency that they need more.
Put those timeboxes into your calendar to recur each day at the same time. Only you know your context but I reckon most people can get by with a single 30- or 60-minute email batching session each day, if it’s dedicated and devoted to this activity alone.
Think about and turn off all email notifications. These will be the obvious ones like pop-ups on your iPhone and laptop but also less obvious ones like the inbox count in your browser. Protect yourself from this highly compelling but ultimately worse-than-useless information!
When you’re processing the emails and you encounter one that really does require some thought and time, give it a timebox of its own, rather than trying to cram quality work into your email batching session
Keep an eye on how many emails you can process in your 30-minutes. I reckon you’ll get to 50 before long.
Add a line to your signature - communicate this way of working to colleagues and business associates. Email signature example (code snippet - whatever’s most useful)
Marc
Links you may like
7 days of Timeboxing (the free email micro-course)
Timeboxing, the book (US)
Timeboxing, the book (UK)
Timeboxing, el libro (Español)
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