The 12 steps to cure e-mail addiction
It has changed the way we communicate and do business, with it’s ease of use, price (free for end users), and effectiveness, e-mail has taken our productivity to a whole new level. But there’s a darker side to it. Now people are getting addicted to emails. The misuse and addiction is doing just the opposite, costing businesses millions of dollars in lost productivity. But there’s a hope, reuters put it this way — “Alcoholics have one, and so do drug abusers. Now people addicted to e-mail also have a 12-step program designed to tackle their obsession.” Here are the 12 steps to manage your e-mail:
1. Admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every ten minutes.
2. Commit to keeping your inbox empty.
3. Create files where you can put inbox material that needs to be acted on.
4. Make broad headings for your filing system so that you have to spend less time looking for filed material.
5. Deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer.
6. Set a target date to empty your in box. Don’t spend more than an hour at a time doing it.
7. Turn off automatic send/receive.
8. Establish regular times to review your e-mail.
9. Involve others in conquering your addiction.
10. Reduce the amount of e-mail you receive.
11. Save time by using only one subject per e-mail; delete extra comments from forwarded e-mail, and make the subject line detailed.
12. Celebrate taking a new approach to e-mail.
I have real trouble with #2, though I know it’s the only way I can avoid #1. Good list.
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I am also addicted to checking email, I thought that it’s a compulsive disorder of mine. Couple of weeks ago I talked with few of my friends about what they do first when they get into the internet, ofcourse everyone said they check their email.
The only way to cure myself is get busy wtih other stuffs, there are days when I check my email just once when busy.
I think most of us are addicted to email in varying degree…! If I had to summarize the 12 steps to 2 steps, I would put it this way:
1. Commit to keeping your inbox empty.
2. Establish regular times to review your e-mail.
Alapa: Thanks for the compliment and referral link to Myndet(I’ll surely check it). BTW, I had to rescue your comment from Akismet.