Are You Drowning in Email? 3 Strategies for Dealing with the Deluge

Quick: Take a look at your email inbox and think about how you’d best describe it. An avalanche? A small mountain? Or a tidy, Marie Kondo-approved collection of messages, awaiting your prompt response? 

If you’re like many talent pros, you may have hundreds, if not thousands, of messages from candidates, hiring managers, and company executives, not to mention newsletters or offers from companies you like. They sit there in bold font or with a little, eager dot beside them, guilt-inducing reminders that you need to read or respond. 

Simply put, most of us are drowning in email. 

Worldwide, 347.3 billion emails are sent and received worldwide every day — and it only feels like all of them land in your inbox. The average professional receives 121 emails daily and spends 28% of the workday reading and answering emails. 

At the sight of so many emails, some people feel their anxiety — and heart rate — soar. Others ignore their inbox to the point of rudeness. So, what's the right approach? And what does your email style say about you? Take a break from your inbox and read on. 

Inbox Zero: Take control of an unmanageable number of emails

In 2007, when email was still fairly manageable, San Francisco–based author and podcaster Merlin Mann gave a Google Tech Talk about “Inbox Zero.” His idea was that if you tended to your email carefully, you could finish each day with an empty inbox. He suggested that every time you receive an email, you choose one of five options: delete (or archive) it; delegate the task involved; respond (only if you can do it in one or two minutes); defer the email until you can respond; or do what the email requested. 

At day’s end, you could then relax into a state of serenity and accomplishment, knowing that you’d face a clean slate the next day. The appeal was undeniable. There are few things more satisfying than checking everything off your to-do list, and an empty inbox can make talent pros feel like they’ve exerted a tiny bit of control on even the most unruly days. It can reduce stress and anxiety, and —  let’s be honest — it’s a formula pretty much custom-made for those of us who are, well, perfectionists. 

Inbox Infinity: Let go and surrender to the overwhelm 

Of course, Inbox Zero can also be a way to avoid real work. Hey, we know that everyone loves to waste time on meaningless tasks every now and then. But research shows that it can take upward of 20 minutes to get back to deep work after an interruption. Being hyperresponsive to email can hinder your productivity. 

Also, a lot has changed since 2007 and most employees now receive so much email that Inbox Zero is like an oasis on a vanishing horizon. Even Merlin admits that his own work inbox is embarrassingly cluttered. 

Enter, Inbox Infinity. This is the email approach for people who have pretty much given up trying.  “There’s something really liberating,” says Andre Spicer, dean and professor at the Bayes Business School, City, University of London, “about the idea of just forgetting about the number of emails in your inbox, and instead of trying to kind of drain the ocean, you actually just let it wash over you. You let these emails come in and assume that there are going to always be too many for you to deal with.” 

The middle way: Manage the time you spend on email, rather than the numbers

Inbox Infinity does have its drawbacks, though. For starters, you might miss something important — and in some professions, including recruiting, it pays to respond promptly. And Microsoft researchers have also found that ignoring emails is a telltale sign of a bad manager. 

That’s why the best way to approach email may be not to limit the number of emails in your inbox but to limit the time you spend dealing with them. Merlin now recommends that people check their emails at set times every day: when you first walk into the office, at lunch time, and before you leave, for example.

If you have a job where you need to reply more quickly, you could try checking email once every 60 to 90 minutes. And set a timer, so you spend only 15 to 20 minutes on email at a time. It’s a way for you to control your inbox, rather than letting it control you.  

Final thoughts: Do it your way

In the future, it’s possible that AI will manage our email, making this problem go away. But for now, if your heart pounds every time you open your inbox, this might make you feel better: In recent articles, one writer confessed to having 57,000 unopened emails while another copped to 75,825. The point? We’re all human, and doing our best in the face of this deluge. 

So, take a deep breath and choose the method of managing email that works best for you because no matter what you choose, those little pings will just keep coming.