When the electronic mailbox overflows

Tips for handling the daily flood of information

21-Jul-2009

The e-mail in-box fills up with more and more new messages; the telephone rings incessantly; the team meeting is about to start; and the talk must be ready for tomorrow. Even under perfectly normal office conditions, the daily flood of information can rapidly turn into stress. With this in mind, the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) provides tips on healthy ways of dealing with the "tyrants" lurking in the in-box.

Sending information is easier today than ever before. Messages can be received in seconds. At the touch of a button, hundreds of e-mails can be dispatched to their recipients. A consequence however is that the frequency of messages, enquiries and requests received each day has grown several times.
The demands placed upon employees have changed accordingly. Individuals must absorb and process more and more information in ever shorter spaces of time. They constantly face the question: what is important right now? What takes priority?

"This pressure, this feeling of always having to react quickly, can become a trigger for stress," says Dr. Dirk Windemuth of the BGAG Institute Work and Health in Dresden. Concentration is constantly interrupted; tiredness and irritability increase. These feelings of unease may even lead to physical complaints such as stomach problems and headaches.
At the same time, says Windemuth, some people are actually addicted to continual communication. "It makes them feel important. It may also explain why some people mark all the mails that they write as high priority."

Stress syndrome or addiction: neither is necessary. Every employee and every company has the power to do something about it.

1. Use the features provided by your software.

Many undesired messages can be blocked by a good spam filter.
Dedicated folders and special search and filter functions facilitate the sorting and storing of e-mails. Selective further training in this area may also be useful.

2. Any company can improve its own e-mail culture

• • Agree on an information style that is brief and to the point
  • Write meaningful topic lines
  • Avoid superfluous attachments
  • Avoid the inflationary use of the confirmation function
  • Not every mail actually has top priority
  • Use the distribution list selectively; do not send a copy of everything to everyone, "just to be on the safe side".

3. "Classify" a mail when you first read it

Is the subject important or not important? Is it urgent or can it wait? Can it be binned straight away?

4. Review your own behaviour:

Are you becoming dependent upon the flow of information? Are you worried that you might miss something? Not everything that sounds interesting on the Internet is actually useful. Are all the newsletters that you receive actually helpful for your work? Unsubscribe from information that you can do without. Even when the sender does not make this particularly easy.

5. Seek proper conversations with colleagues.

Some problems can be solved much more easily face to face than by a long exchange of e-mails.

6. Set a quiet hour aside away from your mail

Make a point of taking time to concentrate, in which you dispense with all possible distractions. During this time, allow yourself the luxury of ignoring your in-box, and of working on one thing only for a defined period. If you were in a meeting, you wouldn't be reachable, either.

7. Take breaks

In your schedule, allow for the fact that not everything can be planned to go smoothly: build leeway into your schedule in order to allow you to respond to the unexpected.