So, you´re developing a new habit to check your mailbox no more than 3-4 times a day. You have also turned off different mailbox notifications, but the volume of emails is still large. Is there anything else you can do?
Firstly, you´re not alone. Most people who use email on a daily basis have felt overwhelmed by email. That is a great communication tool, but people often overuse it (Content Team 2020). Being buried under emails will not just make you ineffective, it may also make you sick (C. Cooper 2019).
The average office worker receives around 80-120 emails every workday. They produce a bit less, about 30-40 emails per day (Templafy 2020).
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Despite of social media and instant messaging platforms, we still use emails. In fact, the humble email is still in top form as over 306 billion emails (business and consumer) sent and received per day in 2020 (S. Anacleto 2021). This number is expected to grow to over 361 billion by 2024 (Radicati 2017). From 4 billion to expect 4.4 billion users by the end of 2024, it is foolish to hope that the number of received and sent email will decrease in the near future.
What can you do about a large number of emails?
Considering that you have organized your email, established “rules and filters” that sort email into a particular folder, unsubscribed from things you don´t read: there are a couple of additional things you can do:
1. Develop a habit to declutter your inbox on a daily basis. Start doing it once a week;
2. Send less emails, you´ll receive less (N. Eyal 2020);
3. You do not need to answer within 5 minutes and you do not need to answer every email you receive (answering extremely fast to every email does not show to your colleagues, that you are a hard worker);
4. If you read an email, do something with it. Avoid reading one email 4-5 times or more without taking any action (K. Gleeson 2008).
Back to work:)