Trying to Get a Grip
For the past several weeks, I have gradually come to the conclusion that one of the main reasons for my lack of creativity lately has been that I have allowed my email to take up the best parts of my day. I decided that I needed to do something about it and so, today I sent out the following to my staff.
In order to enhance creativity and communication, I am voluntarily adopting the following communications practices:
1. a) I will generally only be reading and responding to my emails between 9:30-10:00 am and 2:00-2:30 pm each working day.
b) I will generally not be checking my emails in the evenings, weekends or holidays
c) If you send me an email that requires more urgent attention, please contact me in person or by phone/Skype and inform me.
2. Generally, I prefer to communicate or to be communicated to in the following priority:
a) In person
b) By phone/Skype
c) By email
People who communicate to me in this order will receive my highest priority.
3. Issues of a personal, disciplinary, or emotional nature will not be dealt with by email. Email will only be used in such matters to record or restate the results of the discussion afterwards.
4. Personal email will not be done during office hours.
I would like to hear from some of you how you are dealing with the tyranny of email in your life and business.
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2 comments:
These sound like great boundaries! I do my emails after I write a post. I think my mind is clearer. If I try to get the emails out of the way first, then my brain is not as creative.
Before I retired I worked in an office where people would send emails to someone sitting in a desk five feet away! We are losing the vital art of face-to-face communication. All these modern devices have a tyranny of their own. We have more urgency in being in touch with one another through the internet, cell phones, text messages, etc. and have lost the urgency of being still before God. We have new gods.
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