How To Reduce Email Overload

As a professor who has researched communication practices at some of the world’s leading organizations, I’ve regularly encountered executives who can nimbly lead billion-dollar international companies yet struggle to tame their overflowing email inboxes. On one hand, top leaders must lend insight to—and communicate with—a multitude of employees. On the other hand, these same leaders need time to focus on strategic issues without constant email interruptions.  

Research shows that leaders’ overflowing inboxes doesn’t only impact their stress, but can undermine their ability to effectively lead others, as well.  That’s why executive communication overload isn’t just bad for one-on-one interactions that go awry—it can create a cascade of organizational challenges that undermine productivity, team collaboration and overall workplace effectiveness.

My conversations with executives about their daily communication challenges inspired me to write a book, PING: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication, that showcases research-based strategies to solve these problems, and to found Ping Group, a consulting firm dedicated to enhancing executive, team and organizational communication. And I’ve learned a few things along the way.

One of the core issues at the root of this email overload problem is what scientists termed the “the email urgency bias,” in which email recipients incorrectly believe a response is needed more urgently than the email sender actually expects. This bias explains why we feel the need to incessantly check our inboxes and interrupt work tasks to respond to emails as they arrive. This false sense of urgency is stressful, inefficient and can lead to burnout if left unchecked.

The solution to reversing these unproductive habits and establishing intra-organizational communication norms that foster productivity begins with a simple but powerful shift: make the implicit explicit.

Here’s how:

• Set Clear Response Expectations. First, begin by explicitly discussing with your team when email responses are generally expected. This will stop you and others from wondering how urgently you have to reply to an email. For instance, if you set an explicit norm that emails will generally receive a response within 24 or 48 hours unless otherwise indicated, there will be less need to constantly check your inbox. Similarly, by simply noting the ideal response time in an initial email, you can eliminate the email urgency bias. It turns out that just a few extra words to remove ambiguity can meaningfully reduce email-related stress and interruptions.
  
  
• Flag Time Sensitivity. There will inevitably be some communication that requires a more (or less) urgent response than the average message. In these cases, you should create an explicit process for noting urgency. For instance, you can encourage team members to indicate this in their subject lines, using tags like “Urgent” or “Non-Time Sensitive.” Or even better, allow for a separate mode of communication, such as instant messaging or text messaging, to be reserved for truly urgent matters. By doing so, you can minimize the need to regularly open your email inbox, which can better allow you to maintain distraction-free focus during critical work periods. As an added benefit, you’ll find it easier to disconnect when “off the clock,” which can help both you and those on your team to rejuvenate and improve overall work performance.
  
  
• Chunk Your Email. Once you’ve reduced the pressure to constantly check your email inbox, the question becomes how to identify the best approach to emailing during the workday. Research suggests that chunking your email (and meetings) into 2-4 confined periods a day can be the ideal approach. A benefit to chunking is that it reduces the attention and productivity costs from switching back and forth between work and communication tasks. One study found that it takes over a minute just to get back in the work mindset after checking email, which means that if you send 60 emails equally spread throughout a day, you’re losing an hour in recovery time alone. Conversely, having multiple dedicated and bounded communication periods will allow you to incorporate relevant information you receive during the day into your work without it becoming a constant interruption. Further, you can use emails as a more mindless break between more intensive work tasks.
  
  
• Tame the CC Culture. One way to reduce the overall number of messages in your inbox is to fix the CC (or BCC) culture. Many workers CC their leaders out of habit to keep them in the loop. Not only does this mean that leaders’ inboxes are more likely to be overflowing, but a culture of CC’ing is often perceived as being driven by a need to “cover your own butt.” And this perception has been shown to undermine coworker trust. Thus, setting clear guidelines on when it is appropriate to CC can save everyone time and stress.  

Cultivating a healthy communication culture for leaders requires intentionality and effort. By making implicit expectations and norms explicit, and fostering an environment where clarity is prioritized over speed, organizations can significantly improve trust, morale and productivity. When executives take the lead in establishing clear communication practices, it sets a powerful example for their teams. The result is an organizational culture where everyone feels more empowered to communicate effectively.