As a blogger, how many email accounts do you have? And how many times a day do you check said email accounts?

I personally have five different email accounts. One for each of my blogs, a work email and two personal accounts. As an iPhone addict, each one of these email accounts is connected on my phone and would notify me whenever I  had a new email. Of course, I had to check said email right when it came in. What if I missed something important?

Does any of this sound familiar to you? My guess is yes, it does. 

In Day 10 of the Mom Blog Money Blog course, Laurie Turk talks about working smarter, not harder. One of the tips was to only check email two times a day. Also, in the final hangout of the series we did covering the Mom Blog Money Blog course, Laurie mentioned that she only checks her email twice a day at 9am and 2pm and that she deletes a lot of emails that don’t fit with what she is doing.

Laurie’s words really got me thinking. It made me take a look at how much time I was spending checking emails on my phone. And those emails usually required me to do something else so I was getting really wrapped up in doing things that I hadn’t planned on doing. My to-do list kept growing and growing and the things I really wanted to focus on were getting lost.

Since then I have shifted the way I handle my emails and I spend a lot less time on my phone and more time doing other things I love like spending time with my kids and improving my photography (and maybe taking the occasional nap).

So, to help you break your email addiction here are few tips:

Understand IT CAN WAIT

We have shifted to a culture that thinks everything needs to be done right away. This, along with advances in technology, has made it so easy to become addicted to checking emails. But you need to tell yourself that it can wait. That company wanting you to do a product review doesn’t need an answer five minutes after they sent you the email. They can wait a few hours.

By understanding that you don’t have to check your emails and reply right away you are taking the first step to breaking the addiction and getting back your life.

Set dedicated email times

Laurie said she checks her emails at 9am and 2pm everyday. This works for her. It doesn’t work for me. I homeschool my kids and we are usually just getting started on schoolwork at 9am. Instead, I’ve found that 7am works for me in the mornings and I have to be flexible with my afternoon time because what I do each day changes.

Figure out what times work best for you to check your email and stick with those.

Delete, delete, delete

After you understand that the emails can wait, it’s time to know that it’s okay to delete emails that don’t apply to you. You don’t have to reply to every single request. If the request isn’t a good match, delete the email and move on. You can delete newsletters that you don’t want to read, you don’t have to fill out every survey sent to you.

Also, unsubscribe from those newsletters that you don’t want to receive anymore. That will eliminate some of the emails that you find yourself deleting all the time.

Flag for follow-up

If you only have 30 minutes to check your email and can’t reply to everything that needs your attention, flag the rest for follow-up. The next time you check your email, start with those.

Disconnect from your phone (or turn off notifications)

Your cellphone might be with you all day long but that doesn’t mean you have to be using it for email. Either disconnect your email accounts from the phone or turn off notifications for new emails. This will help you resist the temptation, especially in the beginning.

I hope that these tips help you break the email addiction. It really will free up a lot of time in your day that you can use to spend more time doing other things that you enjoy.

For more really awesome advice on blogging, purchase the Mom Blog Money Blog workshop. It’s a wise investment for serious bloggers.

What are your best tips for managing your email? 

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