One issue that seems to affect your ability to find and protect time for writing is email.

You may disagree on details. Not every suggestion will work for you. But I hope you find something in here that you can try to make your situation at least 5-10% better.

Two core ideas here are that “dealing with email” is not the kind of task you think it is, and that the stuff in your email is mostly not urgent.

When we made rapid changes to how we work in response to the pandemic, these ideas became even more important. The post I wrote then is relevant in many circumstances.

There is even some research which shows recipients assume a higher urgency than the sender intended, which leads to anxiety and overwhelm.

Your individual actions also contribute to the culture of your organization as a collective. There is a difference between supporting flexible working and contributing to a culture in which people feel like they can never switch off from work. Try to avoid doing this where you can.

With student email, Katherine Firth of Research Insiders Blog has written a great post on how proactively emailing students regularly can serve their needs better and reduce your email overwhelm.

Laura Portwood-Stacer has continued this theme with a post about how to teach the email norms you expect from students.

To conclude, I’ve also recently waded into debates about email sign-offs and other formality in email. My focus is on collegial communication and the subtle, confusing norms of how to conclude email.

Related Posts:

Making Decisions: planning & scheduling

Managing the energy you use to make decisions

Asynchronous teaching and setting boundaries