Brad at ClearContext points to a post by Shawn Morrissey who comes to the realization that he is extremely productive with his email when on flights with no connectivity. He further suggests blocking out 90 minutes per day to process through your email with Outlook set to Offline status, so no distracting emails come in.
While I can definitely see the practicality in this, it’s important to consider how to apply it to your job, and what sort of responsiveness your job demands. If you’re in sales, this may simply not work for you, but if you’re in a more technical role it might be perfect. The 90 minute window seems arbitrary, and something that could be modified to fit your role.
My one concern in this situation is that you could very easily spend time and energy on emails threads that have already been resolved, and by the time you connect to sync up your incoming and outgoing emails, it’s too late to prevent your out-of-date response from going out. But this is a minor downside, and one worth risking.
The beauty of this concept is that it allows you to treat email processing like any other task you would set aside time for. It also gives you a clear finish line since no other mail will be coming in while you’re busy processing. I wonder how this could be achieved for someone that works directly connected to an Exchange server?
[tags] email, email productivity, offline, Outlook offline [/tags]
by Shawn Morrissey
20 Mar 2006 at 00:31
Jason — thanks for the kind words, and I am usually connected directly to an Exchange server at work. Exchange is one of the reasons I go offline every day – Exchange is fantastic at delivering email rapidly – maybe too good…B-)
by Jason
20 Mar 2006 at 00:39
Haha – thanks Shawn! I suppose I should have waited before asking that question until I had a chance to try it tomorrow at the office! Great original post, too.