3 Myths about email: Myth # 2

Myth # 2: We should limit ourselves to checking email a few times a day

We need to check and process email regularly in order to prioritise and control our work effectively. 

Research by the Kingston Business School shows that although allowing ourselves to continuously be interrupted by email has been shown to negatively impact productivity, limiting access to it also has negative implications. When users aren’t checking email regularly, they can become anxious and stressed about the volume of email and workload tasks banking up in the inbox.

By turning off email alerts and allocating time to check and deal with it at regular intervals, research reports that people feel more in control and less overloaded by email. The recommendation is to attend to email as tasks are completed or around once per hour. The key is to not just check email but to actually delete, file or action email it whenever the inbox is visited.

Click here to read Myth #1