How many times shall you check emails in a day?

The number of hours in a day cannot be stretched and one is thus hard-pressed to complete all the tasks within a day’s time. And one of the tasks in a typical day is to respond to an email. We need to manage a series of tasks and not replying to an email gives away bad impression about the recipient. A recipient is regarded as laggard when he takes more time to reply an email. People thus have the habit of checking inbox frequently throughout a day. If you are also confused as to how many times you should check emails, then here are few pieces of advices to help you manage your time.

Some of the experts in time management and productivity say those who check emails frequently tend to reduce their productivity by several notches. So the question that arises as a consequence of this statement is what will define the word ‘frequently’? One needs to know that how frequently one should check the emails that will not harm his or her productivity. In a survey among many Americans it wad noted that almost 40 % of the surveyed individuals check their email within a range of 6 to 20 times a day. It is a tedious job to change or define or explain your email habit as we do it much spontaneously. We can instead streamline the habit instead of calculating how many times we check emails.

I would suggest all of my readers to avoid checking their emails early in the morning. Just after entering the office, avoid checking mails as it distracts you fro the important tasks that are due for completion. Moreover if there is any distracting news in an email it will surely take away your concentration and your productivity will drop substantially. Looking at an email always insists the reader to reply to it and if you do so in the first half of your office hours then you are sure to develop fatigue soon. Other office works will then wither be left undone or you will be doing them with lack of energy and focus.

You can set a fixed amount of time to check emails in a day. In that case there is no restriction to check emails at the beginning of your work or at the end of a day. But there is a precondition in this clause – if you are a junior profile in your office you will probably have to face difficulties if you schedule the time of checking emails in the morning. You may have to face the wrath of your bosses for doing so.

Finally, there is a good way of managing time buy checking email five times a day. This will allow you to focus on your work completely for two hours after which you take a brief break to check emails.