Tuesday, January 22, 2008, 9:12pm
Why Checking Email Twice A Day Doesn’t Work (For Me)
Like it or not, part of my job as a freelancer and marketing consultant is to solve problems and answer client questions usually sent to me via email. During the average day, I’ll get between 20-30 emails that I actually HAVE to respond to in some capacity. Frankly, I don’t have the luxury of checking email only twice a day, and I don’t think I’m less productive because of it.
Why would I want to save all of it for later?
As a client, I expect fairly prompt service and a quick turnaround time, which is why I like to respond to issues as soon as possible for my own clients. Unless you are a CEO or you have some other bigwig position, I’m not sure you can get away with pushing a response to an issue off until it’s more convenient for you.
Why would I want to respond to a ton of unrelated email at once?
For me, this takes much longer and is much more intimidating than if I simply respond to email as it comes in. I love a clean inbox; it allows me focus a little easier and get my work done faster.
Now I’m not saying that you should stop whatever you are doing to respond to an email as soon as it comes in - I don’t let it take me away from other things - but I am saying that a huge inbox is a pretty daunting thing to see at 3pm in the afternoon (or whenever you set as your email responding time).
In the end I guess it’s just a question of preference, but I would definitely try both techniques before pronouncing one as more productive than the other. I think it’s rather unrealistic to think that the average worker can get away with checking email less than five times a day.
