Every second counts. We’ve heard this all throughout our lives, and as working professionals, it’s even more valid – particularly if you’re billed hourly. You may not even realize, then, that email is wasting your time.

Let me explain.

Think about how you spend your day. If you spend 15 minutes getting caught up on news or social media, that’s 15 minutes that may be fun, but could be spent doing something productive so that instead of finishing work at 5:15, you finish right at 5:00 and head home. 

But have you ever thought about micro-time? A few seconds here, ten seconds there…do you know how much time that actually eats up? 

Think about it like this. Let’s suppose you’re expecting a package in the mail, and you don’t know when the mail will arrive. Are you going to, say, every ten minutes go outside and look at your mailbox? If you did, you’d have to put on shoes (and a coat if it’s chilly), open the door, go outside, walk to your mailbox, check, get disappointed when there’s nothing there, go back inside, take off your coat and shoes, and then return to what you were doing. Though this process may only take 45 seconds, if you’re doing that every ten minutes, then that’s 4.5 minutes every hour you’re wasting doing a task that yields nothing.

Multiply that by the typical 8 hour work day, and suddenly you have close to 40 minutes wasted just going to your mailbox. If you did that every work day, that would be 3 hours in just one week!

If someone asked you to spend 3 hours every week just looking at your mailbox, wouldn’t that seem silly? Like a waste of time?

Using this same thought process, think about your email. Though it takes, what, 10 seconds total to press the email app icon on your phone and hit refresh, those ten seconds add up, right? If you’re standing in line at the store, or in the restroom, on a break, during dinner, checking your email, those seconds accumulate faster than you think. 

So let’s say you check your email on average 3 times an hour. That’s 30 seconds every hour. Now, if you’re chronically looking at your email, it’s doubtful it’ll only be during working hours that you’re hitting refresh. Be honest, you probably check it outside of work too, right?

So if you’re up at 7am, and go to bed at 11pm, that’s 16 hours. That means you’d be spending, on average 10 seconds x 3 x 16 on checking emails. I’ll do the math for you – that’s 8 minutes in a day you’re wasting checking email for absolutely no reason. That’s a full coffee break. A meditation session…in a week it’s nearly a full hour of just clicking your email for the heck of it.  You probably aren’t even really doing anything with that email and it doesn’t even include time you actually spend having to read through new emails either. 

See how it quickly adds up?

Chronic email checking is a problem that affects numerous professionals. Even if it was just 1 hour in the week, wouldn’t you like that hour to do something else with your time? Do you really want to think back on your year and say “wow, I wasted 52 hours this year just checking my email”? Wouldn’t you rather use those 52 hours for your hobbies, or spending time with family?

If you’re part of this demographic, then it’s time you adopted a new process. You don’t need to be wasting so much time on something that, in essence, is a time suck. You’re a busy professional with varied interests, hobbies, and things you need to get done. Why waste over a full working week’s worth of time clicking a couple buttons, just because?

You can readjust your mindset to be a more efficient professional, but that requires you to have a solid system in place that gives you the peace of mind that you’ve accomplished what you need to accomplish, and that you can leave your email alone after you’ve checked it.

This is precisely what I’ve been working on for the past several years – honing and developing a system that makes inbox management a breeze. Those who’ve adopted my system, the ARTT™ system, have found they can free up an average of one hour per day just by following a process that simplifies how they approach their emails. 

Think about what you could do with an extra 365 hours in your year…

When you sign up for the ARTT™ Email Productivity System, you’ll join numerous other professionals who’ve learned to take control of unruly inboxes, and free up time in their day to do things they’d rather be doing, such as engaging in a favorite hobby, going out with friends, or even just having an extra hour to unwind at home – extra “me time”.

Your inbox shouldn’t control you, you should control your inbox.

So check out arttemail.com, or, if you’re not ready to take a full step (but would rather dip your toe in the water) I have a free webinar for you to learn more about the ARTT™ Email Productivity course. I’ll personally introduce a new way of thinking about email, show you step-by-step how to conquer your inbox, and build a routine that causes less stress and allows you to get more done each day.

Register for your favorite day, and I’ll see you there (or in the full course if you’re ready to jump right in!)