Toxic email habits have diffused the importance of daily planning, a key component of time management. People allow the delivery of new messages to continually interrupt and impose on their daily plans. Prioritizing your tasks each day gives you a daily roadmap that will help you resist the tempting interruptions brought by new email.
Let’s assume that you’ll take the first half-hour of your morning to plan your schedule for the day and to figure out which tasks need your attention. In the planning process, you need to assess email delivered tasks the same way you prioritize other work-related tasks such as return phone calls, meetings, and projects. Once daily, gather and assess ALL your work priorities, and make decisions about how and when you can best use your time. This is when you access your diary system, find the appropriate messages in your action folders, plan meetings, prioritize tasks and phone calls, and set the appropriate schedule that will enable great results for the day. That schedule should include a few times to sort your incoming email, most of which hcan be triaged in your e-folders (see post).
The trick is to avoid being drawn off plan for insignificant email messages.
Most successful businesspeople have one thing in common: They have a plan and they work that plan. Productive email users are no different. They take time to organize their days, and stick to that plan, allowing for reasonable (but not continuous low priority e-mail) interruptions. (excerpted from Inbox Detox, Acanthus Publishing 2009)
