Save time by engaging less in emails and spending more in ideation

1. Emails; the major work distracter
Have you ever imagined how work life would have been without your smart phones and the
curiosity to check the latest email dropping in your inbox? Impossible as it may seem but believe me
you would have lots of time to ideate. Curiosity has killed creativity in its true sense in businesses
today. You wake up in the morning, look at emails in your smart phone, find one email that is
puzzling and the day is taken for a toss. When you reach the office, even if you have a huge team to
look at the emails, you still have a look at it out of curiosity and by the time you have looked at all
emails; half the day is gone. We end up doing jobs that we are not being paid for but do we really
have an alternative?
The answer is yes!
First of all try to divorce your emails and let it be your occasional pal. Difficult; I know but it needs to
be done.
Let me try to give you 3 alternatives for regular email checking:
1. Get a personal secretary
This may sound to be the best solution. But here is the catch; the secretary should be in the
age group of 35-45 preferably married and try to gauge how reliable she is. Just hand over
your official email address to her. You need to train her well on your business and
operations and she should your voice in the organization. She manages all your emails and
gives you a summary at the end of the day.
This might get a bit frustrating sometimes if she tries to overpower people and you have to
be vigilant about it. Not everyone can afford this but of-course if you are spending more
than 20% of your time in emails, go for it.
2. Check your emails only twice a day
This is the best way to look at emails. After some time your peers, subordinates and clients
will also come to know about it. Don’t think that you are going to miss any urgent stuff,
because if there is an emergency people will call you.
3. Create a separate email ID that you use for specials contacts
Now if you are in touch with some key people, whom you have to respond swiftly to, create
an alternate email ID and share it with such people only. Share this email ID with only
extremely sensitive people and make sure that the number does not reach double digits.
Trust me; if you just try to do a time sheet analysis of the work done in a day; especially for middle
management; you will see that you are killing time. You have much more important things to do
than reply to emails like an in-bound call centre executive.
It is perfect time for us to get rid of the smart phones and other gadgets or use them just to play
Angry Birds.