How to Spend Less Time on Email in 6 Steps

We all want to spend less time on email, right?

Whether you’re a typical office worker logging in the 40 hours (plus) per week, or a freelancer hustling to make money, you are working a lot. And much of that time is time spent on email.

It’s not anecdotal. It’s real. You’ve probably seen the numbers, like that we spend one-third of our work hours on email. Bleh! But what if there was a better way?

• What if you could spend less time on email?
• What could you accomplish if you weren’t stuck in your inbox? What higher priority projects could you tackle?
• How much more productive could you be if you weren’t constantly interrupted by email?
• How would your work/life balance improve if email didn’t invade your off hours?

I can’t think of a single reason not to spend less time on email. Can you?

So let’s do it. Let’s spend less time on email. And here’s how, in 6 easy steps…

These are the REAL tips about how to spend less time on email

Before we get into the 6 steps, let me make one thing clear: Lots of other bloggers out there have good advice about how to spend less time on email, with tips ranging from keyboard shortcuts to only doing email during certain parts of the day. These are all good tips, but they ignore one crucial factor: how you go about writing your email is how you spend less time on email.

Because it doesn’t matter if you turn off your notifications or use rules or any of the other advice if you aren’t dealing with the actual problem: too many poorly written back-and-forth emails.

And that’s what we are going to tackle in these 6 easy steps. So let’s go…

Step one: Spend more—not less—time on an email

“What the heck,” you’re probably thinking. “She just said she’s going to teach me how to spend less time on email!” And I am!

But first you must accept one truth: Dashing off emails in a hurry is one big reason why you spend too much time on email in the first place.

It was Cal Newport who made this crystal clear to me. In his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport says in Rule #4, Tip #2 “Do more work when you send or receive emails.”

“Do more work when you send or receive emails.”

That means we take the time to be thorough when writing the email, and yes, that means it takes more time. But it is time well spent because it saves you time later.

It’s kind of like spending the time to stock your refrigerator. You’ll take time going to the grocery store and then putting those groceries away. But then later when you want to cook a meal (or heat up a frozen dinner), you can get straight to it. And not just for that meal, but the next one and the one after that as well.

If I want to find out more about a project before taking it on, I don’t send an email asking, “Can you tell me more about the project?” That might only get me a little information and possibly not even the information I need.

Instead I ask very specific questions so I can get closer to being able to give the prospect an estimate—and I avoid wasted time.

Sometimes (if not all the time) spending more time an on email means you don’t do email on your phone but wait until you are back at your laptop or computer. Email done on a smartphone is often carelessly done, and that only leads to more time spent on emails, not less.

Email done on a smartphone is often carelessly done, and that only leads to more time spent on emails, not less.

Step two: Spend less time on email when you write for your reader 

Write from the recipient’s point of view and you will save yourself time plus you will save them time. Think about what they do or don’t know as well as what they do or don’t need to know. If they do need to know something, include it. If they don’t need to know something, don’t.

The result? You’ll avoid confusion when you read your email from your reader’s perspective. And avoiding confusion saves time.

Here’s a quick example: While I was writing this, I received an email about meeting on Monday after 1:00. But I don’t know this person yet and didn’t know which time zone they were in. That meant I had to reply to ask the time zone and then I had to send another reply later when I knew the answer to that.

If the sender had said the time zone in the first email, I could have answered with only one email. Done!

Step three: Use bulleted lists and other tricks for scanners

When you make your email more readable, you’ll also save time in the long run. That’s because people are scanners. You might write a carefully crafted email and still get a reply asking for clarity because the other person didn’t read what you wrote.

So write for scanning with bulleted or numbered lists, short paragraphs, and transition words like next and finally.

Will it take you longer? Yes, it will take you a little longer. But you’ll save time by communicating clearly the first time. I can’t emphasize this enough.

See more ways to keep people reading what you wrote.

Step four: Use a call to action to spend less time on email

When you write for your reader, you make it clear what they do or don’t need to do. That’s your call to action. Be clear!

What do you need? When do you need it?

And if you don’t need anything, let them know that too.

Step five: Re-read what you wrote before sending

Again, this takes longer compared to simply clicking Send, but taking a minute to do this means you’ll make sure you’re clear…and that means you’ll be less likely to confuse your recipient and force them to email you for clarification.

Step six: Rewrite your subject line to spend less time on email

With your subject line, you are communicating even before your email is opened. That can help your email to get opened and responded to because your recipient knows what it’s about before opening it.

Most of the time, people write the subject line and then the email. But I find that going back and rewriting the subject line helps because my thinking has clarified as I’ve been typing, and I have a better idea of the actual subject of the email. And of course I need to convey that to my recipient.

Think about it from your recipient’s perspective. A subject line like “checking in” is easily ignored. But a subject line like “Will you be on the Zoom sales meeting later” will get noticed…and will act as a reminder too.

These are only six tips to spend less time on email, but I have a few more. Are you ready to slash the time you spend on email? Get more of these email tips here with this handy ebook.

Bonus tip: Be a better, faster writer

Learning how to be a better, faster writer also helps you spend less time on email. When you are a better, faster writer, you are thinking more clearly. And when you are thinking more clearly, your email communications improve.

When you write better and faster, you spend less time on email. Every email you write communicates clearly so you don’t have a back-and-forth going on with the other person.

So, yes, this also takes time…but it saves time in the long run. And that’s what we’re trying to do, right? Spend less time on email…so we can focus on something we want to be doing instead.

You might also like…

Do you want to save even more time when writing at work? Then you might also like 2 Ways to Get Faster at Business Email Writing and Other Writing too.

And for more tips on effective business emails, see here.

 

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-2-bell-alarm-clock-on-grass-field-36351/