Email is Destroying Your Productivity

How many unread emails are in your inbox right now? 10? 20? 30? I am the absolute worst person in the world when it comes to hoarding emails; seriously, I’d have to go back months to start deleting all of the non-essential items in my inbox. I’m not kidding, scroll back to 2009 and you’ll find Facebook notifications about nights out that I’d rather not remember and yet have never got around to deleting. But what if there was another way?

Well, there is.

Something tells me that I’m never going to need to relay that email conversation from 7 years ago anytime soon. And wading through them is not a trip down memory lane I want to take. Using a platform like Buckets allows the user to forge a new means of communication entirely.

Emails Aren’t Designed For Task Management: That’s What Buckets Is For.

The key to managing your workload via email is to stop doing it. Sure, email has been at the backbone of our online communications for years now, but it’s also starting to become completely obsolete as technology continues to evolve. Using Buckets, you can manage all of your work and personal communications, to-do lists, and Projects, in the one place.

Once you start to utilize Buckets to its full potential, you’ll find yourself checking your emails less and less.

Once you sign up to Buckets, you can begin to migrate all of your task management over to our system so that you manage every element of your life within the Buckets platform. Sticking to just one device like this will have a massive impact on your productivity, i.e. ditching those epic email threads for a clear visual of your entire workflow at a glance.

You Can’t Run A Business From Your Email Inbox.

It is not an office. It is not your personal assistant. Do people knock before they email? No. That crap just lands in your inbox at any time and you feeling ‘obligated’ to deal with it there and then. If someone knocked on your office door without an appointment and you were seriously busy, would you sit down and chat to them for half an hour? No. So stop letting yourself get distracted by emails that really aren’t a priority at all — yet.

When you use Buckets to manage your workload, you can prioritize your tasks according to importance and deadline, so that you only have to focus on one thing at a time. It’s very different to having an email inbox that pings you every half hour with promo mails, subscriptions you don’t remember signing up for, and work queries that distract you from the task you’re focused on in the present moment.

Also, there’s the privacy issue when it comes to those massive email threads that seem to form within workplace communications. Picture this; you’re emailing back and forth to Debbie in HR, ranting about the bloke sitting next to you who’s doing your head in, when Debbie suggests a meeting to iron things out. So, you send an email to Mr. Doing Your Head In, and accidentally forward your entire correspondence with Debbie along with it. Sounds like that’ll be a fun meeting, right?

Using Buckets will put your privacy concerns to ease as only you or the other team members have specifically added to a Project will be able to access and see your notes on that Project. So, no more email mishaps on the horizon.

Checking Your Email Every 10 Minutes Is RIDICULOUS.

In one study, it was revealed that around one third of US workers actually check their emails every 15 minutes of the day; that’s a whole lot of time eaten up during the week. And in a 2015 online survey of 400 white collar employees, it was reported that they each spent 6.3 hours checking their email per day! Even more worrying, is that almost a quarter of millennials reported checking their emails whilst driving a vehicle.

Email doesn’t have to be another distraction in your life. Once you set expectations and make it clear when and how often you’ll be responding to emails, you can begin manage your time instead of allowing every single email to deter you from your workflow. And, once you start adding a task management system into the mix, checking your emails will become less of a priority.

Your Inbox Is Not A To-Do List: You Need A Task Management System To Organize Your Workload.

A 2016 study found that checking emails too often resulted in higher stress levels for employees, and researchers suggested that ‘tools and user interface designs for protecting stressed users from the onslaught of email could contribute to improving workplace productivity and health.’

Email is a linear system, it’s not designed for file sharing and collaboration, and it’s very easy to get confused/lost in the middle of a conversation. However, a designated task management system will allow you to manage all of your communications in the one place without having to sift through mountains of threads and attachments.

Using Buckets, you can create to-do lists for both your work and personal life, create Projects, set Reminders, and even Label tasks according to priority. So, when a task comes into your inbox, you can log into Buckets, forward it to your Sandbox (where everything goes until you’ve assigned it to a Project), and come back to it when you’re ready to deal with it. Once these email related tasks have been added to your to-do list, you can rest easy knowing that you won’t forget about them until they’ve been completed.

Look, Breakups Are Tough.

No-one is telling you to quit your inbox for good. Well, not for a while anyway. But by taking control of how you manage your emails you can begin to take control of your productivity too — and that all starts by setting up your first to-do list in Buckets.

Arranging a family party with 50 different family members? Add them to a Buckets Project and get the ball rolling, rather than emailing back and forth for about a week (which is how long it’ll take to get everyone on the same page). Working on a business project? Assign tasks to team members via a Buckets Project and you can collaborate with them all in the one space, rather than trying to navigate a gazillion email threads at once — not to mention the hell that is upload attachment speeds.

It’s essential to utilize a task management system like Buckets if you really want to get the most out of your working day. Don’t worry, it’s not cheating. it’s simply an upgrade (disclaimer: not applicable to actual real life relationships!).

Thanks For Reading!

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