Don't Let Email Control You
Email is infinitely distracting and most people let hundreds or thousands of emails both read and unread pile up. The cognitive load that your brain encounters every time you open up your email client is massive. For example, on Monday you receive an email. First, you open, scan, and think I can’t actually answer that right now but I’ll get to it later. The next time you open up your email client you see that same email again and your brain will subconsciously go through the same process again (even if you don’t read it over). Additionally, you are reminded that you have this email to answer at some point in your upcoming, and presumably busy, schedule. This will happen over and over again. If you are one to receive a lot of email then this will be pushed towards the bottom of your inbox while your total count in your inbox continues to rise. Every time you open up your email you are reminded of what all you have to do.
So, make this a rule, every time you touch an email get it out of your inbox and put it in your task manager and archive so its out of your inbox. For me, this means if there is an email that I can’t answer at that moment I throw it in OmniFocus to process later. I have a specific list for emails to answer. Thus, on my own schedule, I set aside time to go through that list and search for the email and reply back to it.
You’ll know longer have the overbearing weight of email hanging over your head when you open your email client.
Don’t let email control you