Brevity signals respect. Three sentences or fewer.

An email is an imposition on a person’s time. Writing to someone is saying I know you have a finite amount of time and attention today, and in life, and I’m going to take some of it.

Undue formality only wastes more of that time. And it wastes the writer’s time in worrying about exactly how formal to be.

Rarely does an email require more than three sentences. If it does, consider calling or getting together in person. Social interaction is healthy, and more time spent in the inbox isn’t likely to be.

Don’t let the inbox become a to-do list.

Our novelty-driven brains tend to give priority to whatever email is newest, unread, at the top of the pile. Even if it’s some quotidian thing. While we leave important conversations (or other non-email tasks) unattended.

Remember always that newness does not signal priority.

Aspiring to inbox zero—an empty inbox, perfectly clean and organized and contained—is for most people some mythical idea. The world seems to be conspiring to keep it from happening. And obsessing over it can be totally counterproductive if it means you give priority to emails that don’t deserve your attention at the moment.

But inbox zero is totally possible if you add emails to a to-do list, along with all other worldly tasks, that you can keep prioritized according to what you really need to get done. What you really want out of any given day, week, or lifetime. Which is rarely to be beholden to the whims of an inbox.

Check only two or three times a day.

If your job allows, obviously. (And most do, if you insist on it.)

I used to check more like 100 times. Many American workers spend a total of six hours a day in their inbox, according to one calculation (which seems high to me). Others have put it closer to two hours, though that doesn’t factor in the time lost during switching tasks. Every time you check your email, you lose an additional 30 seconds or so that it takes to refocus your attention on whatever you were doing.

When you do check, plow through that inbox.

The people who might need you more urgently should know to call or text you.

All of this and more in this week's episode of If Our Bodies Could Talk:

Some of our past productivity ideas that you might have missed, all of which are excellent, include Tabless Thursday, a “cool” button, and grayscaling.

I don’t want to overstate the potential benefits of everyone spending less time and energy on email, but it would have health and economic benefits that would ripple across societies forever.

Best,

Jim