[outsideoflife]

Don't blame the email

1) Before email I had more letters and phone calls

2) If you disrupt your flow to answer emails and that is not mandated by your manager, that is your fault.

3) If you disrupt your flow to answer emails because your manager insists, then that is your managers fault.

I personally don't even notice emails arrive while I am in the zone. I answer them in batches once free.

[SatvikBeri]

It's pretty much entirely a matter of cultural expectation. At one job I'd get criticized for being "unavailable" because I took more than an hour to answer emails. Another job polled everyone (in tech) to find out when we did and didn't want meetings, and ended up with no meeting mornings (because people preferred multiple mornings to a few full days.) Guess where I got more work done?

[Consultant32452]

I cultivate the idea that you've got a 50/50 chance of successfully reaching me via email. There's 3 people whose emails go into a special folder I monitor regularly. Everyone else goes into the regular folders that gets skimmed once or twice a week. About once a day someone pings me on im to ask me to actually read an email they sent and then I do. It saves a ton of time.

[dorkwood]

I’ve always treated email more like a news feed than a to-do list. To me, stressing out over unread emails is like stressing out over “unread forum posts” or “unread news stories”. Does every email really deserve my attention?

[lev99]

Adding "What is an acceptable response time for emails?" to my list of interview questions.

[taylorjacobson]

I think we also have to be willing to push back. Answering emails provides a nice dopamine hit (check something off + people-pleasing), so it's both cultural and internal.

One of the ways I've been most successful blocking out time for focused work is booking accountability appointments on Focusmate (https://www.focusmate.com).

That reduces the amount of space in my schedule for distractions and emails to absorb.

[BeetleB]

>Before email I had more letters and phone calls

Funny: When I forced people to call me by not being on IM, I got far fewer calls than I did IM's. And I doubt people were getting 5-20 letters per day every day.

The lower the barrier to communication, the more the communication. Phone presents a higher barrier.

>If you disrupt your flow to answer emails and that is not mandated by your manager, that is your fault. If you disrupt your flow to answer emails because your manager insists, then that is your managers fault.

I have worked, and know many who have, under managers who will keep flip flopping between the two as it suits them. They will berate you for wasting time on emails, but then they'll penalize you during reviews because customers/peers send in feedback that you are unavailable.

I try not to leave it unambiguous. I make sure I ask during interviews: If I check emails 3 times a day and am by default not on IM, is that a problem? I don't mind in-person or phone interruptions, because they are always far fewer. To give you an idea, I have a coworker who sits a few cubicles away from me, and to him it's a pain to drop by my cube when he has questions. Gives you an idea how low the barrier is to using IM whenever something pops in your head.

[hinkley]

Someone pointed this out to me and now I can’t unsee it.

In places where they interrupt you constantly there is often a pattern of announcing insufficient snacks or food to feed the whole company are in the break room.

This conditions people to check their email immediately every time a new message arrives so they don’t miss out.

[coldtea]

>1) Before email I had more letters and phone calls

Way less than the number of work emails people get -- and mostly addressed to specific departments and roles. A mainframe developer in 1970 would not get 30 letters and phone calls per day.

>2) If you disrupt your flow to answer emails and that is not mandated by your manager, that is your fault.

You'd be surprised.

>3) If you disrupt your flow to answer emails because your manager insists, then that is your managers fault.

Which, even though a fact, is no relief.

[fardo]

>Don’t blame the email

I blame the unspoken expectations that come with email. Email is, in my experience, a political problem rather than a productivity bug.

Requests for support on active bugs comes through email. Your manager will request features, or ask questions about your code and status, through email. Coworkers on different teams collaborate through email.

To not answer these emails immediately probably would not lead to readily apparent punishment, nor would my manager say “he insisted” I respond that quickly, but other coworkers who prioritize these active issues, are ultimately more visible, promote faster, and get bigger bonuses.

By choosing not to play the email game, in many cases, you won’t be punished, but you won’t be rewarded either.

[TeMPOraL]

> Requests for support on active bugs comes through email. Your manager will request features, or ask questions about your code and status, through email. Coworkers on different teams collaborate through email.

I'd love if that was always the case. As it is, I see more and more people send those kinds of requests through Slack or other IMs. E-mail at least is searchable, storable forever and easy to forward around. Slack, not very much.

Yes, I've been bitten by it this week, which lead to me triggering a team-wide discussion that we no longer have any clue what's the actual work to be done on a particular feature, as all the updates of the requirements were made partially on the issue tracker, partially on videocalls, and partially on the IM between management and individual developers. Similarly, back when I was more involved in running a local Hackerspace, I very strongly pushed for the rule that nothing said on IRC is official, and the only binding decisions are those made on our mailing group.

[mseebach]

> but other coworkers who prioritize these active issues, are ultimately more visible, promote faster, and get bigger bonuses.

That's an opportunity. Your company doesn't have a structured process for determining bonus sizes, but apparently hand them out half-blind on vague notions of visibility. This is a very "hackable" situation.

Since you're significantly more productive than your colleagues, you have some "wins" of an entirely different kind of substance than them, all you need to do is to figure out how to make your work and the business outcomes it enables a little more visible.

[aeternus]

You should be rewarded since your productivity on assigned tasks will theoretically be significantly higher than your coworkers who are prioritizing e-mail and being constantly interrupted.

If those coworkers are able to achieve the same level of productivity while also prioritizing and addressing active issues, then they are arguably more valuable and don't they deserve the larger bonus?

[mbillie1]

> You should be rewarded since your productivity on assigned tasks will theoretically be significantly higher than your coworkers who are prioritizing e-mail and being constantly interrupted.

Sure, but lots of things _should_ be that are not. The reality is that the appearance of productivity (for example, habitually timely replies to emails) will impact your promotion/compensation more than your actual worth in many, many organizations.

[nlawalker]

Nah, it's that your definition of productivity differs from your organization's. This frequently happens with a lot of other concepts too, like "quality", "maintainability" and "security."

Part of being employed is simply compromising with the organization on these things.

[mbillie1]

> Part of being employed is simply compromising with the organization on these things.

Since my definition is different from my employers, you say I should adopt their definition, and call this "compromise"? That's an interesting way to use that word.

[icedchai]

This is the correct approach.

If you have OCD about answering your email, inbox zero, etc, it's your own fault.

[emodendroket]

E-mail becomes a lot more manageable if you create a filter for every kind of automated message/mass-mailing you get. At least if you're not in a position where everyone and their mother needs something from you.

[orev]

Inbox zero is not at all about answering every email in your inbox, it’s just about reading and deciding if you need to do something with the email. If yes, then you move it to another folder. If no, then archive or delete. It’s very helpful for productivity, so exactly the opposite of your point. You can choose to ignore the actionable ones, or only process your inbox at certain tones, etc...

[icedchai]

I should've put "answering emails or inbox zero." Nobody answers all their emails, right? Well, maybe some people do...

If I don't do anything with an email, I just leave it in my inbox. Currently, I have over 17,000 emails in my personal, and over 8000 in my business inbox.

[aytekin]

The best approach I found: Process emails in batches from oldest to newest until you have an empty inbox. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290175

[stronglikedan]

Always go newest to oldest, lest you find that the older ones that you're spending time on are no longer relevant and your time has been further wasted.

[gioele]

Read newest to oldest; act upon/replay from oldest to newest.

[stronglikedan]

Makes sense.

[ggregoire]

Agree.

And it's funny the only issue talked here is emails.

I'm surrounded by people replying to their Slack/Whatsapp/Messenger/Instagram/Telegram messages all day, basically interrupting anything anytime they receive a notification on their phone.

The duration of uninterrupted productive time is probably more like 10 min than 1h 12 min for a lot of people.

[sk1pper]

I’m doing the same thing with Slack, too. I recently turned off slack notifications it’s great. Eventually I’ll notice the icon on my slack or email tab has a notification when I’m not actively doing something, and then I can respond.

[walshemj]

I wish I could up vote this more - people just need to learn some coping strategies.

[mc32]

Ok but why put the onus on users “to cope”. Make it a “culture” thing.

[dv_dt]

Culture is formed by repeated individual choices from above and below. Many people pushing back on unreasonable expectations is how expectations can be kept reasonable.

[walshemj]

I would also have said its a "professionalism" thing - and the use of coping strategies is term of art for those working with neurodiversity.

[hinkley]

Do you think people who have achieved mastery in their field spend all their time coping? Or is this the first stuff they delegate to somebody else?

[ddingus]

This

What I will often do is batch email. Works. Until whatever it is reaches some critical point. Often nothing does.

SMS, or a call works then.

If those happen too much, I trigger a what is worth what discussion. Perhaps my point of focus needs to wait. And it can. No worries, but for the expectations associated with it will need to be managed along with that wait.

There is a cost to everything. Communicating that cost helps with this stuff. Can help very considerably.