Inbox Anxiety – Seven Rules to Claim Your Confidence Back
How often do you open your inbox and find over a hundred unread emails? And how frequently do you “clean your inbox” just to see it overflowing with emails again the day after? One of the reasons I used to get stressed around emails was that I would spend a whole day in a workshop, and I couldn’t check my emails because it would distract my mind too much. Then I checked my emails after the workshop, when I was already exhausted, and I knew that I had a lot of tasks and queries to handle. I had this urge to respond to people because it was a habit from the corporate world, and I pride myself on being “responsive” and “open”.
When I worked in the corporate world, I would often have a day full of meetings and calls and come back to my desk at 5 or 6 PM and “start to work productively”. Or, you probably know this: it’s Friday, 4.30 PM, and you are just about to start your weekend, and then you see this one email, and it keeps you at your desk for another hour.
Your partner, in the meantime, is waiting for you to help with the groceries or wants you to be home early so that you can greet your friends who are coming by for dinner. There are various reasons why our body exhibits stress reactions, and I thought it would be helpful to break this phenomenon down to help you better understand and manage it.
If you experience high levels of stress when you find too many unread emails in your inbox, you should know that you’re not alone. In fact, the phenomenon is so widespread that it became known as inbox anxiety.
Inbox Anxiety Came with Emails
When email was invented in the 1970s, nobody had a clue how it would change the way we work. In time, they have become such a ubiquitous tool that, depending on your seniority, there’s a chance that you haven’t even experienced work without emails. I personally remember the days when we did not have emails at work yet, and I have gone through several tech upgrades since then (desktop, laptop, BlackBerry, smartphone).
Despite now having approximately 30 years of experience with technology (I believe I wrote my first email in 1994), I still don’t know exactly what to do when I receive specific messages. One ground rule I established early in my career was: when I am angry, I don’t send a response. I wait until I feel calm again. In fact, when I revisit the same email with a fresher approach, I sometimes even notice a certain positivity that I had overlooked earlier.
You might be surprised that our generation still relies so much on email, but inbox anxiety doesn’t only refer to email now.
We often have several other professional inboxes to manage as well (Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Instagram, and about four email accounts), including comments on Facebook and YouTube channels. Sometimes, we consider ourselves “responders”.
With the Corona crisis and the need to work from home, most of us worked even more with emails and messages than usual. Despite the general ‘reply-all’ rule in some organizations, this is not always followed, so you may fall off a thread and then have to follow up or update your colleagues differently. At Global People Transitions, we introduced Slack again in 2020 during the crisis. We had already failed at it in 2016, primarily due to my inability to focus on too many channels.
In 2025, we will be moving to Google Team Chat due to a few disadvantages of Slack. For my team, it’s been a constant evaluation and discussion as we are a very diverse, international team with Gen Z, Millennials, and a GenX founder. We are also living and working in different countries, with varying cultural preferences, and most of us love technology (and are a bit introverted, so texting is probably our preferred option). I’ve tried to find out where my own inbox anxiety stems from, and I hope to share this with you so you can find ways to overcome this as well.
Switching Off and FOMO
One issue that creates inbox anxiety for me is the need to switch off completely for short and extended periods of time. There is sufficient research to suggest that you should take a complete break from work for at least two consecutive weeks each year. However, in most of your jobs, it is still expected that you will be available during vacations and weekends, especially during launches, emergencies, crises, and personnel-related decisions.
Being Responsive versus Productive
Another issue is that I would like to be responsive. It’s one of my trademarks. And there are certain limitations between being responsive and being productive. However, to be able to do “deep work” and focus on quality time online with my clients, I sometimes have to wait for a response until the end of my workday or until I get a break. This might be only an issue when you are a small company and nobody else can cover for you. Most companies no longer expect a response on weekends, and responding within 24 hours still seems acceptable.
Underlying Relationship and Trust Issues
The third theme I notice has to do with email anxiety when you receive emails from certain people. I assume that there is an underlying relationship or trust issue with this person. Maybe this person has mistreated you in the past, or they have turned around something you wrote unacceptably. Perhaps they belittle you in their emails to their manager, copying you, or they criticize you publicly. A good manager would provide their feedback in more appropriate ways than emails, but we also know that there are several mediocre managers out there.
What is Inbox Anxiety and Where Does it Come from?
According to Ron Friedman, author and psychologist, the reason why we feel overwhelmed when we find a lot of emails in our inbox is that each message is a new demand of our time and it triggers one more decision to make. This leaves most of us with less energy for the work that matters. Another reason that could make you anxious might be the lack of clear expectations and etiquette especially in the intercultural context you live in as an expat.
Also not having anybody to delegate emails to and feeling responsible for client service even when it’s not in your direct area of control could considerably make your stress level rise. In fact, studies have shown that checking email frequently leads to higher levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress.
We feel stressed also because we don’t feel productive. As we are constantly interrupted by a “PLING” our cognitive performance is reduced resulting in an attention deficit. According to research done on the negative effects of email on productivity, it takes us an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the taks after we’ve been interrupted. Now, think of how many times they interrupt you at work and make an average calculation. It’s scary.
There is one more issue related to inbox anxiety and this is known as “email apnea.” In fact, 80% of people tend to hold their breath unnaturally when going through their emails causing a change in their normal breathing patterns. Holding your breath can contribute to stress-related diseases by throwing off the body’s balance of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitric oxide.
Seven Tips to Help You Take Back Control
Here are seven tips to help you regain control of your inbox, time and productivity.
1 – Clarify the Purpose of Your Conversations
Ensure you are familiar with the company’s communication policy and etiquette. This will also clarify why and how you’re using emails instead of other tools. Establish communication ground rules with your team members from the start by developing a team collaboration and style guideline. (We are happy to share our template from the Global Rockstar Album).
2 – Build Better Relationships with the Senders and Receivers
If you don’t know the other person well, try to reciprocate their tone. You don’t want to come across as too friendly or too formal if the relationship is just starting. When I communicate in German, I struggle because the connotations of how you address a person differ depending on the cultural context. You can easily be far too informal in English and hurt somebody’s feelings. As a general rule, avoid emotions and emotional topics.
When you aren’t familiar with the sender, another good alternative is picking up the phone. If you are a millennial, calling someone you don’t know might not be your preference, but I still think it’s the best way to establish first contact with someone.
3 – Stop Escalations and Solve the Real Issue
I love to watch escalation bingo on email only when I’m not in the firing line and cc-ed, but not cause of anger. I read too many emails that were escalated to the appropriate management level too late. We often read many blame-storms and cover-your-back when the underlying relationship issue is not addressed. I’m pretty good at NOT responding, and I’m usually slow when it’s heated or emotional. The reason is that I often need a break from the triggered emotions.
I can leave emails drafted for days, only to discard them. It’s a skill I learned. Sometimes I might come across rude or negligent…It even happens that I forget an email. However, it’s often not that important or the person can find another route to talk to me. If the person knows me, they will reach out by phone, text message or just resend.
4 – Trust Your Inner Priority Manager
I hear people are still flagging, filing in folders, reading, and answering emails, although I notice that response time has gone from 1 minute to 1 week to ghosting. I sometimes don’t respond to an email because I don’t feel I have anything to say. In some cultural contexts, this is perfectly acceptable behavior; however, in some others, it could come across as rude. Recently, I have started to acknowledge all messages at least with an AI-statement or an emoji. However, I sometimes feel that conversations never end. What is your experience dealing with those messages that never seem to end?
5 – Limit the Times You Respond to Inboxes
Role model the change you would like to see in this world. If you don’t want to be bothered by emails after 7 pm, either you are powerful enough not to respond anymore or stop sending emails after “normal office hours”.
6 – Practice Writing Better Headers for Receivers
Have a policy for all your media, including who you accept and what kind of messages you will respond to. Instead of responding to every tweet, I have now connected Twitter to Slack. I can check if I want to respond or if it is a random tag. Apply a filter or sorting system to prioritize, deactivate desktop notifications for undisturbed focus and adapt the headers so readers can skim the headers for urgent messages. If the message is urgent, say that in the header. I get a lot of system notifications, newsletters and promotions that I just scan, but usually I only need to read the header or keywords to know if it’s worth going deeper.
7 – Track How Much Time You Spend Emailing, Messaging and with Whom
This will allow you to plan how to gradually reduce your email time realistically. You might try to reduce the time you spend on your inbox by 5 to 10 percent weekly. One way to do this is to practice writing shorter emails and to invite people to a call when you think that more context is needed. Offer “office hours” where people can contact you with a problem that you will solve with them over MSTeams/Zoom right away.
You might want to change that if you notice you are so busy because you spend an hour sending cat videos to friends and family. And you might not know right away what you want to change and how.
I’m sure that with a clear purpose, clarified roles and responsibilities and an organized approach to your inboxes you can reduce your inbox anxiety. We can discuss this further in your next coaching session.
The solution for me is our new RockMeApp Chat: in 2024, we introduced RockMeApp CHAT, so I can now completely channel my energy to you and eliminate the electronic noise.
Reflect on what you will implement to save your energy and productive time.
