I recently surveyed some members of our team to find out how many hours a week they were spending on email. They, and other business colleagues I asked, all came back to say they spend more than two hours a day, or ten hours a week, managing email. How much time do you spend on work email each week? If you’re not sure, you can use a tool like RescueTime to find out. Everyone agreed that ten hours a week, 20% or more of work weeks, was too much given roles and our other priorities. We admitted that we had gotten lazy and allowed a number of bad habits to fester turning email into a time monster. What if we could reduce the hours spent on email by 30%? The opportunity to reclaim a few hours a week was motivating and we agreed to a challenge – to reduce time…

1. Set a 15 timer and work on those lingering tasks or emails that only need a few minutes of your time. 2. Take a couple minutes to unsubcribe or create rules for five emails that routinely clutter your inbox. 3. Start with end in mind. When you head home, what accomplishment would make you smile? 4. Drop something. Identify one thing you need to stop doing, but that you know is tempting and will hurt your productivity. 5. Answer the question why. What’s the benefit of being productive for you? Keep that in mind as you strive to maintain discipline.