I took a (company sponsored) workplace time management class some years ago. The #1 message of the course was: Don't multitask.

I'm old enough to remember when email was a store and forward service. One didn't expect to get either delivery, let alone a reply, instantaneously.

Don't multitask.

That's probably good advice. Sadly there's always something poking it's ugly little head into your day. There are Dogbert merchandise with Let me drop everything I'm doing to work on your problem.

Don't multitask.
___________________________________

Does that apply only to the workplace, where one is getting paid, after all, and it's important to avoid any type of disaster? Or does it apply to unpaid work as well? If so, why?

I get 400+ emails per day. The snail mail glossy sales flyer that was easily identified and tossed now comes across looking just like the important, work-related email. So, I find myself opening junk emails way more often than I'd like.

I once attended an in-office class on time-management. While, in general, I could have better managed my time by avoiding the class, it did have a few valid suggestions. One was time-blocking instead of to-do lists: setting aside blocks of time for activities, both work and personal. Email management should be a time-blocked activity.

Now, I go through my emails twice a day in half-hour blocks. I have a very simple but brutal methodology to my email management.

1. Click Edit. Select all sales flyers, political party solicitations, penis enlargement ads, vitamin flyers, health insurance solicitations, etc. Then, [DELETE] them. I don't even bother unsubscribing. They're like locusts, they'll find a new route to my inbox.
   
2. Empty my junk mail folder - MS Outlook's online algorithm is frighteningly adept at filtering junk emails, so a quick glance is enough to let me know if a legit email got lost in there.
   
3. Open business-related emails. My email program batches replies to the same subject line, so I usually have the chain with the first email.
   
4. Reply to business-related emails after scanning all of them - just in case there's a later one with a different subject, but related to an earlier chain.
   
5. Open personal emails (family, friends, hobby clubs, etc.), replying to the ones that need a reply or making a note to reply later on my own time. You'd be amazed at how many hobby clubs have retirees on committees who have nothing better to do than send out emails all day.
   
6. Close my email program and ignore it for several hours - no matter how high that number in that little red dot gets.
   

My biggest time thieves now are this blog and social media. Since I know I'm going to sneak over and peak, I block out a few minutes in intervals to check them. Seems better to build in a smoke break than to pretend you will magically give up smoking.

As much as I snarked at how silly time blocking was when first introduced to it, I actually found it a useful time management tool. I don't block out my entire day like some people, but I do on occasion reserve a few blocks of a day for activities related to something important.

It was in an office environment that I found time-blocking most useful. Corporate-Americans love to schedule meetings for other people. People would schedule meetings during open times they found on my calendar, inviting me to meetings to which I had no reason to go but for them to be able to say they invited someone from my department.

Some senior management folks would block their entire calendars to avoid those meeting schedulers, to take control of their time. Of course, they had people to manage their calendar; I did not. Taking my cue from them, I started blocking chunks of time every day so I would have a few meeting-less hours each day. I'd put my phone on DND and get some work done.

Does that apply only to the workplace, where one is getting paid, after all, and it's important to avoid any type of disaster? Or does it apply to unpaid work as well? If so, why? ~ lenona at February 14, 2019 8:30 AM

It applies to everything, lenona. Focus is the key to getting things done.

Answering the phone while typing an email and watching a webinar is only going to end up with you sending your email to the webinar questions board and asking the person on the phone about the slide on the webinar.

"Communicable diseases, on four."

There was an old commercial for an insurance company mocking the Allstate booths then being implemented at most Sears stores (Sears having then-recently purchased Allstate). The booth is mistaken for an information booth and the agent, while directing an insurance customer in filling out his application, fields questions from shoppers. The mash-up of his directions to both results in a mis-cue about what's on the fourth floor of the store and a panic ensues.

I was trying to figure out what the hazards might be in combining chores at home. (Not while doing anything online, per se.)

Of course, one has to set an alarm of some kind when something is baking in the oven, even if you AREN'T doing some other chore. But what's the harm in working on something else, in the meantime?

But what's the harm in working on something else, in the meantime? ~ lenona at February 14, 2019 9:18 AM

I'd say nothing. Where tasks can be done in parallel, it makes sense to do them that way and not linearly.

I'd say working on something else while the food bakes in the oven is a smart use of your time.

My own experience tells me that I need the alarm you mentioned. I tend to get overly focused on one thing to the exclusion of other things. Where once I was an adept and fluid multi-tasker, today I am not.

> I have a very simple but
> brutal methodology to my
> email management.

Too late, Babe.

400 EMAILS A DAY!

I'd die.

Switching tasks takes both time and mental energy. If you are doing some serious mental work (writing code, writing a report, preparing a seminar, doing a business plan, accounting), you must block out time or your quality will suffer and errors will increase. This is one of the fallacies of open office plans even with cubicles: constant interruptions. I think such plans are favored by bosses who don't trust employees and who don't understand the drag of interruptions.

I have yet to meet one person---ONE---who does not think that meetings are almost always a terrible waste of time. I like emails, or phone conversations when it's a good time for both parties, more than I like texts. Texts are fantastic for limited purposes but I can't take it when people want to have an actual conversation in text. Talk about distracting multi-purposing! Just when my mind has gotten back to whatever I was thinking about or doing prior to the text, here comes another installment. Back and forth, back and forth. And I can't actually accomplish anything else as long as the other person keeps lobbing the convo ball back to me. Twenty minutes of unsatisfying text-based communication vs. a two-minute phone call where I can speak normally, my "tone" is never misunderstood, and I know when the freakin' convo is over because we hang up.

I'd die. ~ Amy Alkon at February 14, 2019 11:15 AM

Most of them are junk.

Since I have a business license, I'm on public records and get lots of emails soliciting my business to buy some promotional products - key chains, tchotchkes, etc. Those are almost universally routed to my junk folder.

Then there are the industry emails - PAC news, continuing education providers, liability insurance providers, and competitors trying to get me to join them.

I get emails from navigators offering to sell me Affordable Care Act plans that I can't afford.

I'm a Red Cross and CERT volunteer, so that means 5-10 emails a day on training seminars, classes, heads ups, etc.

I also get alumni fundraising, mentorship solicitations, and membership emails from two colleges (undergraduate and graduate).

I'm a registered Independent voter, so both political parties and their allies are constantly hitting me up to join them or at least convert me to their point of view.

Four hobbyist clubs in which I've either attended an event or am a member email me almost daily about classes, meet-ups, etc.

I have an amateur radio license and a concealed carry license, so those put me on several more mailing lists.

My office emails me daily with a schedule, interest rate information, and relevant economic and legal news.

Several social media accounts send me headlines. NextDoor, Twitter, and Pinterest, are the most egregious offenders.

I get emails from my photo processing software provider with updates, tips and tricks, and solicitations to upgrade my software to the latest version.

Fortunately, the servers at MS Outlook and Gmail do a great job assigning most of the spam to the junk folder so staying on top of things is fairly straightforward.

Conan:

I get 400+ emails per day.

Stop viewing porn sites. Problem solved.

Stop viewing porn sites. Problem solved. ~ Patrick at February 14, 2019 6:15 PM

Perhaps the cause of your email problems, Patrick, but not mine.

I have to admit the porn junk email thing has gone way down. At least for me. Right now my biggest issue is I booked a hotel room through Expedia and now I get silver singles, time shares, window replacement, and a whole pile of other junk adds due to them. They alone added 20-30 junk emails to my inbox a day.

"PS One reason I didn't get a Ph.D. was to avoid all this crap. I don't need anybody to crack a whip over me to read and study. Being doing it on my own my whole life. No Ph.D., sure you lack some cred with some people. But you also "lack" a fuckton of useless, life-sucking meetings."

Good grief... we get it already, you didn't get a Ph.D. and now you have some bizarre chip on your shoulder about it.

Just to clarify, that "fuckton" of "useless, life-sucking meetings"... typically involves things like attending Thesis defenses... presenting research results at colloquia... reporting research findings at funding agencies... etc...

That is the job of a professor, to publish research and present it to others. If someone deems that to be "useless" then they had no business earning a Ph.D. in the first place.

That would be like a lawyer complaining that they constantly have to take depositions and file briefs.

Furthermore, no one is cracking a whip for graduate students to study... typically they are highly self-motivated folks who are performing novel research. That isn't "studying"... it is not possible to discover something entirely new in a book somewhere.

The entire point is that the knowledge simply does not exist... the job is to create *new* knowledge through experiments and data analysis.

The more you talk about what you think a Ph.D. entails the more confident I am that you haven't the slightest clue what you are talking about in this area.

> I'd die.

I have eight thousand after a week off.