Effective communication is important in the workplace, but sometimes it can become a distraction when you’re trying to focus. It’s easy to think we need to give every email or message an immediate response, which sometimes turns into a full conversation that you really don’t have time for.
In this article, we’ll walk you through how you can time block your communication to help you stay focused on the task at hand.
1. Time Blocking Your Inbox
If you constantly click into your inbox each time you get an email, you’re not going to get much done. Not only are you taking time away from the task at hand to read and possibly respond to the email, but it also takes you time to refocus.
You may want to give time blocking a try.
The idea behind time blocking your inbox is to only check your emails within dedicated time slots throughout the day. That way, you can focus on the task at hand for an extended period with minimal interruptions.
While you still may want to glance at the sender and subject line in the notification to not miss anything important, you’re not taking action and jumping over to your inbox right away. Your mind stays on the task at hand because you know you’re going to get to the email later—unless, of course, it’s urgent, and you need to give it your attention.
As you get used to the routine of not opening and responding immediately, your clients or coworkers will get used to this as well. In fact, you may even give better responses as your focus will be on communicating and not rushing back to the item you’re working on.
As a suggestion, you can start each visit to your inbox by checking the older messages first. Anything that’s trash or junk, deal with right away. If it doesn’t require a response, write any action items down, and file it.
If the sender only needs a quick response, you may as well answer them while you're there, but if they need an answer that will take longer than the time you have set aside, flag the email or create a reminder to get back to it later. A goal to keep in mind is to keep your inbox to zero unread messages and avoid dealing with the same email twice.
When time blocking your inbox, you'll also want to consider timing and frequency. This will vary from person to person based on their email volume, what role they have, and their schedule.
2. Time Blocking Your Outbox
For emails that need a longer reply, or those you need to send yourself, block off time to do so rather than spending a good chunk of your productive time in your outbox. It takes a bit of practice, but if you’re precise in your emails, you’ll spend less time writing them as well.
Begin each outbox session by tackling the most important messages and once the time is up, focus on your other tasks. Just because you can reply to someone right away doesn’t mean you always have to. Of course, there are exceptions, but breaking your focus to respond to non-urgent messages adds up.
There’s also the consideration of if the message even requires a response. It’s easy to feel obligated to respond, but if the sender isn’t really asking anything of you or doesn’t require your input, a simple thanks may do the trick depending on who sent it.
Whether or not you respond to every email you receive is a matter of workplace etiquette and your relationship with the sender. Some people would rather receive no response than to open a two-word thank you message, others may appreciate the note.
3. Putting Your Messages on Timeout
Messages don’t take nearly as much time as emails to read and respond to—especially since it’s more acceptable to respond with one word or a strategic emoji or even gif. However, they do add up.
Putting your messenger on a schedule can help limit interruptions. Time blocking your messages is a little different than your emails because they aren’t something that will take a long time to respond to. Instead, you may want to block time to focus on your tasks, and let your incoming messages wait until the session is up.
If using Slack, you could show you’re focused on using a Slack status rather than snooze if you still want to keep an eye on notifications. However, if you do end up using snooze, people can send the message anyway letting you know it’s urgent.
If you’re messaging your coworker, and you do find a conversation dragging on, you may want to invite your coworker to call you for clarification, as speaking over the phone may be faster.
4. Setting Boundaries for Electronic Communications
First and foremost, it’s not everyone’s favorite reminder, but you’re going to notice an increase in productivity if you save checking your personal messages until you take a break or have some downtime.
Both Apple and Android phones have highly customizable focus settings that can help you with this, allowing you to silence certain apps when you switch on do not disturb. This way, you can silence apps and texts you may find distracting, but keep calls on if someone needs to get through to you.
You can also find similar settings on your computer. For example, the Notifications panel in the iOS System Preferences allows you to schedule do not disturb and toggle apps on and off.
Of course, some people and situations will require your immediate attention, but certain things can wait until your productivity session is up for you to address them. This will vary from person to person, but try and come up with your own set of rules on who and what you’ll allow to break your focus.
Limit Your Distractions
With the number of emails and notifications you get in a day, it’s easy to become distracted when trying to focus. If you find this is common, give one or more of these tips a try to see what works for you.