I do not check email in the morning.
Depending on the day, I either first check around 12:30 pm or 1:30 pm and respond to what I can within half an hour, though I often don’t need that much time. I then check again around 5 or 5:30 pm, though I have to admit that as the afternoon wears on, it can get harder and harder not to check in the interim. Especially if I am expecting a reply from someone.
This is a new practice I have been cultivating over the last couple of months. The purpose is to spend the hours reserved for work actually focused on my work, instead of being distracted by emails that may or may not (mostly not, in my experience) need an immediate reply. So far this has been a positive experience. If clients have noticed, they have yet to comment or complain. The biggest change has been in myself.
I had previously noticed, when I would check email first thing in the morning and then continue to check every hour or couple of hours, that my motivation for checking email was often a mixture of boredom and anxiety. I would feel bored with my task and the prospect of a shiny new email was enticing. I would feel anxious about my task or about something coming up in the future and checking email was a way to avoid the anxiety. More often than not, my inbox would be empty or only contain junk mail or other messages that could be easily left for later, and so I would have to return to my task, only this time with my attention fractured. It would then take additional time to get back into the task, which meant I would often accomplish less in the day than I wanted, which often led to more anxiety. The more I checked, the more fractured my attention seemed to get and the harder it would be to return to my work. While email is still my preferred form of communication (my phone is usually on vibrate and out of sight in my bag), I came to realize that the way I was using email was not actually helping me, either with my work or with my mental health.
Nowadays, I can still get bored or anxious with a specific task. I am still tempted to check email as a temporary balm. These are separate issues not directly tied to email. I also find that I am often much happier in the mornings because I have the time to myself and I can focus without fear of being interrupted. Afternoons can be more difficult, in part from simply getting tired as the day wears on, but if I can stick to my email schedule and temporarily forget again that email exists, the afternoon can also be quite focused and productive. While I still need to find ways to manage anxiety and boredom, at least I am not escalating those issues through mindless email checking.
But what about responding to clients in a timely manner? What about missing out on possibly work opportunities? In talking to other freelancers, this seems a common concern. I have heard some say that they try to reply to emails within five minutes of receipt. If that was me, I do not think I would get any work done, as for me focus seems to be all or nothing. And so I want to push back a bit on this expectation of instant communication.
Most of my work comes from repeat clients and I have found that they are usually willing to wait a few hours for a response. I still try to reply within the same day. I do get some queries from new clients, some of whom I know are contacting multiple freelancers at once. I probably have lost some work from these people due to a slower response, and I am okay with that. These account for a small percentage of my work, and for me the improved focus, productivity, and sense of well being outweighs the lost projects.
I have also realized that I don’t actually get very many emails in a day that require an immediate, or any, response. Most emails I receive are newsletters, notifications, or from listservs, all of which may have some value but are hardly critical. I am not adding value to my day by frequently checking these types of emails.
It has also been important for me to realize that my work is valuable and deserves to be protected. This is both for my own sake, so that I can complete projects on time with less stress, and also for my clients, because I think that my work is better if I am less distracted. This is understanding that communication is a tool in service of the work rather than the work itself.
I realize, of course, that my email schedule will not work for everyone. New freelancers, especially, who are trying to book every project they can, may want to check more frequently. But even with more frequent checking, I think it is possible to be more mindful about how we communicate and how communication impacts and intersects with the rest of our work. Perhaps less and higher quality communication will actually help us serve our clients better, as well as keep ourselves more focused and engaged in what we do.