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How many emails do you get on a daily basis?
For me, I’d easily say well over 200 daily emails find their way into my business and personal accounts. Most of those emails come from organizations or individuals that I’ve worked with, interviewed, been a guest on their show, etc.
For my annual time off from work, I know that when I return to the inbox, there will be hundreds if not thousands of messages. Typically I click the box that sets “Select All” and then I delete every message. Nothing personal, but I don’t want to return to work to kill a week reviewing stale messages.
This year, I’m taking some considerable time off during the summer, and at my normal end of year break. It’s all about burnout prevention. It wouldn’t be wise for the burnout expert to burnout, would it?
To help further filter out all the emails for my upcoming summer holiday, I did the following:
Set up separate email accounts for specific types of emails. This takes filtering messages to another level. I set up email accounts for newsletters and investing news. My previously used filters did a good job segmenting messages, but I was still getting the messages grouped together, which was distracting.
Unsubscribed from many emails. As I mentioned before, I get emails from businesses and colleagues that I have worked with over the years. Unsubscribing from those messages shouldn’t hurt their feelings. If it does, they need to have boundaries around their email campaigns and the meaning of business relationships. I simply respond in the reason for unsubscribing as Narrowing my focus. Keep up the amazing work! This hopefully softens the blow of me leaving their email campaign protocol.
By doing this additional filtering of emails and unsubscribing, my business email account has seen a 65% drop in email messages. The newsletters and investing news messages can pile up in the non-business email accounts and I (may) read them once I return from holiday. Don’t bet on it :)
Reviewing what you do on a daily basis in your work will help you fine-tune what you spend time on, and what you shouldn’t be doing. We often operate on autopilot, which for business growth is not good to do.
When you take a vacation, truly vacate from work. We all need a refresher, especially after the pandemic.
Be well!
Michael