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When Email/Slack/Teams Interrupt Your Focus Time

January 13, 2025

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Email and/or Slack/Teams can often interrupt the time we’ve set aside and protected for focused, heads-down work. Let’s dig into some strategies to help us get the focused time during work hours that we crave.

A full transcript will appear here within two weeks of the episode being published. 


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Full Transcript

Ep 84. Email and Slack

[Upbeat Intro Music]

Kelly Nolan: Welcome to The Bright Method Podcast where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up The Bright Method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all, personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep proud of what you got done today and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in!

_________

Kelly Nolan: Hey, hey! All right, so as I’ve mentioned, a couple weeks ago I asked people what their main work and home time-management pain points were, and something that came up again and again on the work front was that, you know, when we try and protect focused time for work, that it is consistently interrupted by work, email, and Slack. And so, today, I want to talk about that. We’re gonna talk less about the need to protect focused time and how that works but more about, let’s say, you’re in that focused window, and email or Slack or Teams, or whatever it is, is calling your name. What do we do about that?

#1: There Will Always Be More Slack/Email/Teams Coming In – 1:10

The first thing I want to dig into is a little bit frustrating to hear but I think it’s one of those things that even though it’s basic we need to keep reminding ourselves of it. So I’m gonna keep reminding all of us of it. And that is this: there will always be more email or Slack or Teams or whatever it is.

#2: Slack/Email/Teams Can Be Seductive – 1:30

In addition to it being a never-ending stream of things vying for your attention, there is also — even though we dislike it, there is something seductive about email and Slack and Teams and all those things, and that is that we get those quick-hit dopamine hits when we respond to things. You know, you think about seeing the notification numbers on those things and seeing those numbers go down or seeing the lines in your email inbox go down as you respond to things. You hit send, and it’s like checking something off a list. We get that quick dopamine hit, and that becomes even more obvious when we compare it to what we’re typically doing with focused work. You know, you can work hard on something for an hour and a half, and it still might be nowhere near done when it comes to the type of work that we tend to do in those focused blocks of time.

I think that’s really important to just observe about the types of work, the type of check-off feeling, that progress feeling that we get on those two very different types of work and just realizing that even though we might view email as this annoying thing, this thing that we don’t like to do, this thing we’re doing for other people, this thing that we tell ourselves other people want from us, want us to be responsive, all this kind of stuff, there is also something going on in there, typically, where we want to do it because it’s a more satisfying place to be over that focused work where we don’t get that check-off feeling even after a lot of work. And I think there’s power in just being aware of that. And I don’t say it to shame anybody. I think we all know it. We all have been there. But there is something very empowering about that.

This is a bit unrelated but that was a big lightbulb moment for me when it came to social media. I heard someone else say, “I turn to social media when I get overwhelmed,” and I just hadn’t even appreciated that yet about myself. Obviously, I knew I was on social media and things like that, but I hadn’t appreciated, “Hey, sometimes when I’m trying to do part of the deeper work in my job and I get a little overwhelmed by it,” suddenly I just find myself on social media. And just knowing that. Having that new awareness of, “Hey, when I get overwhelmed, I turn to social media,” helped me stop doing it. It helped me be like, “Oh, I’m doing that thing,” or at least be able to recognize it. It’s not like I’d never do it anymore, but I can recognize it more quickly and then redirect myself on where I want my focus to go just by even being like, “If I do this I’m gonna have even less time to do that thing, and won’t it feel good to get that thing done?” And so, I can help myself turn back to it.

The same type of thing, I believe, happens often with email and Slack and Teams. We tell ourselves we’re doing it for other people, and there’s validity in that. I’m not ruling that out. But we don’t appreciate that we’re doing it for our own satisfaction of seeing the numbers dwindle down, hitting send, feeling that check-off feeling. And so, I think just we need to be honest with ourselves so we can redirect ourselves when it happens.

The other element of this that — I’m starting off with a topic that’s a little less practical, but I think it does have practical impact. But as I said, there’s kind of three parts to this. The mental game of it is that there’s always going to be more email and Slack, and I think the big takeaway there is don’t chase getting it whittled down because it’s just gonna boomerang around back, so that’s not a good goal. There’s also the second point is there’s something seductive about email and Slack and just being aware of that and aware of our drive for the dopamine hits is good awareness to have.

#3: It’s Okay to Ignore Email to Do The Focused Work – 5:12

And the third part here is it is okay if it feels uncomfortable to ignore email to do the focused work. And that’s a big one for me. If I can clear my inbox, like, have nothing in there, whether I snooze the emails or respond to everything, file it away, if my email inbox is clear, then I do feel more open to focusing on something big. I’m like, “Okay, now I’m good to do that focused work.” But the problem is, is that more comes in (see point one), and my guess is in your job even more comes in than in my email inbox now because I know in my past attorney days, way more came in consistently. It was like chasing that a clear inbox was a bad goal. If I was gonna wait to do that more deep work until then, we’d be waiting a long time. And also that approach leads me to spending more of my time and effectively prioritizing little things that might not actually be high priorities above the focused work. But if my approach is, “I’ve just got to clear out these inboxes, and then I can focus,” I am essentially prioritizing lower-priority things over things that are more important just by virtue of the way they come in at me.

And so, I want us all, including myself, to always fight against that feeling. I fight against the feeling of, “Let me just clear this out, and then I can turn to that,” because you’re never gonna get there, and you are effectively prioritizing the wrong things when you do that. We still need to be able to turn to focused work and not email and Slack even when it is uncomfortable. It’s kind of like, yeah, I feel like people say this when you break up with someone: even though you’re sad, it doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision. Same with any hard life decision. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it was wrong. That’s the kind of same approach here. Just because it feels uncomfortable to ignore email, Slack, Teams, all of that for a period of time, does not mean that’s the wrong decision. And I think it just gets easier the more reps you get in doing it.

Okay, now that we’ve covered the more maybe mental approaches to this issue, let’s talk about some of the practical ones.

Practical Approaches to Slack/Email/Teams – 7:22

Now, what I really like when it comes to email is taking a step back and really thinking about what response time is okay. And this might require you to have conversations with leaders on your team, like what is an appropriate response time? When you’re having these conversions, whether it’s with yourself or other people, I think what’s really important is not just to approach it as what’s an okay response time or how fast do I need to respond to email without more. I think instead what you want to do is also couch it in the context of what you need to be doing outside of email.

So I think saying something along the lines of  (and you can tailor this to yourself), “What is an appropriate response time for email –,” it might be different for internal email versus client facing, “– particularly given that I’m trying to do these types of projects and tasks and need to make sure I protect time and focus for those but I’m also trying to balance being responsive. Given those competing interests for my time, what do we think an okay response time is?” And again, you can whittle this down between internal email, external email, Slack might be different, I would assume that it is, that kind of stuff. This can be conversations with your team but really explaining what else you would like to do be doing with that time so that you’re not hyper-focused on the responsive things and instead using your time intentionally and wisely will give context to the inquiry, and then the actual answer will help you, then, understand how tied to those platforms do you need to be. Because what you can then do is use that response time to dictate the frequency that you need to be checking those platforms, and more so, give you the freedom to take time away from those platforms to do that deeper work.

Now, I will say that I do think that tends to lend itself easier to email, where Slack and Teams might be a little bit trickier to only check them a couple times a day. But I do want you to use that information, at the very least, as a way to say, “You know what? I think I can go –,” let’s say, 45 minutes at the low end, let’s hope, “– 45 minutes without responding to Slack or Teams, and hopefully even an hour and a half or two hours or four hours or whatever it might be between email.” Probably not four hours but you know what I mean, pushing it a little bit more for email. But let’s even say low end 45 minutes for Slack and email, could you at least go dark for that period of time and feel pretty confident? “I’m gonna set a timer for 45 minutes and go dark twice a week, let’s say, to do some of this focused work.” What would that look like for you and how would that feel like?

I do want to note here that I am not one of those people who is like, “The rest of the time, all day long in between email processing time you don’t look at email,” because in my lawyer days, that would have stressed me out way more than just being able to monitor the email. I mean, I’m a big proponent for periods of time, like really going dark and ignoring email. But from a general standpoint, when I say check your email just a couple times a day, it’s more like I want you to just plan on processing email a couple times a day or even once a day, and then you can just monitor email and rest of the time if you need to. I mean, if you can go dark, please go dark. But if you can’t, just monitoring email and asking, “Is this a fire, or can it wait? Is this a fire, or can it wait?” will help you let things go and not let those emails derail your day for fear of, “Oh, my gosh. If I don’t handle this now, I’m never gonna handle it. I’ll forget. It’s gonna disappear into my inbox. I better handle it now.” If you have time protected to process email later, then you are more able to let it go and let it wait.

Strategies If It’s Hard to Ignore Email – 11:04

I’ve shared this before on Instagram, but if you are like me and you are a people pleaser and it is very hard for you to ignore email, particularly from certain types of people like big clients or really important bosses, things like that, if you really struggle to let them go, even though you’re like, “I know it could wait. I know it could wait for an hour ‘til that thing. I’m just not sure I can let it go until then,” then one thing I really like doing is responding but not in substance. So just saying something like, “I’ve got this, and I’ll get on it, and I’ll get back to you soon.” I really, really like that approach, because it satisfies my people-pleasing tendencies. [Laughs] And it helps them feel like they’re getting a response, yet it’s also not derailing me from my plans because if I was trying to focus on some other big email I needed to send or drafting up something or whatever it might be and I get that in, then I can handle that in 10 seconds, maybe 30 seconds to write that email and read it three times because I’m crazy but really be able to send that email off but not spend 45 minutes derailed trying to answer the question in substance, and this still allows me to get back to them and let them know I’m on it, let them know they’re in good hands but again not be derailed.

I do want to note here just a random thing. Do not promise in those situations that you’re gonna get back to them by end-of-the-week-type things. I think often we’re like, “By the end of the week!” or “Before the break,” or whatever, and then you say that 20 times and suddenly 20 things have piled up by the end of the week or the end of the break or January or whatever we do. And so, just really letting you know don’t get into that trap either. Instead, say things like, “I’ll get back to you soon,” or “I’ll get back to you within a week,” or “I’ll get back to you in a couple days.” Just keep it a little bit loose for yourself and also rolling. If I say, “I’ll get back to you within a week,” it’s a rolling thing. You know, if I say that every day, those deadlines are still sprinkled throughout days instead of all stacked up on a day. Okay, so hopefully that helps a little bit on those fronts.

To remind you of the context though, if you are feeling uncomfortable about going dark for 45 minutes, really make sure you’re seeing the context though. It’s not, “Do I stay on Slack or not be on Slack?” The context is there might be some cons to getting off Slack or Teams or email or whatever it is, but there are also benefits I am getting from doing that focused work, and those benefits outweigh the cons. It’s not like there are no cons, but the benefits outweigh the cons, and I think that’s really important to keep reminding yourself because I think we sometimes forget about that element of it.

Blocking Time For Focused Work – 13:45

Okay, a couple more points. I think I have two points on focused work and then a couple miscellaneous ones. About focused work, like the focused time, there are a couple just little things I wanted to note.

The first is that if you block time for your focused work, one thing I want to be really clear on here is that you need to know specifically what you’re doing, and we talk a lot about that inside The Bright Method programs, but you’re not done if you just block focused time and then you roll up on that time and you’re like, “What should I do? What should I be doing during this time?” That planning session you really have got to be clear — I hate sugarcoating time management. I think it’s easier said than done. But you need to lay out the tasks that you will be doing in that focused block in a realistic game-plan-type way so that when you get there you can make the most of that time instead of spending half of it trying to figure out what to do.

So just know that I just feel like that’s really important to flag because some people I talk to are like, “Well, I have focused time and then I don’t know what to do with it,” or “I give it away,” because you don’t have clarity of what you were gonna use it for. So again, you kind of almost lack the context of what’s the benefit that you would get from doing focused work instead of going dark. You lack that context because you’re not clear on what the benefit would be because you’re not clear on what the work would be.

So just throwing that out there. That’s something we work a lot on in the program, but I just wanted to be really clear. Don’t just block focused time. Really understand what you’re using that time for so you can hit the ground running and be more motivated to protect it because you have clarity of what you were gonna do with it.

In addition, I would love to see you block, like, an hour and a half or two hours of your time for focused work at whatever cadence works for you. Just know that you can have that balance of what we’re talking about here, of maybe you block an hour and a half, but you can’t go off Teams or Slack for that long. Let’s say maybe you’re a manager. You know that your team will be struggling without you for that long, something like that. Maybe go dark for 45 minutes, check in on Slack, Teams. Set a timer for ten minutes to do that. Only look for fires that you have to deal with. And then set another timer for 40/35 minutes to wrap up your focused time on that front. But I’m just trying to think of creative ways to meet you where you need to be in terms of responsiveness and availability but also still get you that focused time that you really do need in your job.

It Is Okay For Some Emails to Wait – 16:11

Okay, two other little points. I’m just throwing this out there and reminding us all because I need the reminder. It is okay for some email to wait a few days, and I’m not saying all email. I know that that’s not realistic, but it is definitely okay for many emails to wait a few days. And I think a lot of us beat ourselves up of being like, “I have so many emails in my inbox that are just sitting there waiting,” and email is not texting. Well, I mean, well, let’s be honest, my texts can sit around for a while too. But if someone really needs you and they need a response right now, they will call you also. (Sorry if you can hear all of the crying in the background. She wants her walk. We’re gonna go right after this.)

But really just absorbing that. I just have to remind myself that sometimes too. Sometimes I’m like, “I’m sorry for the delay in responding,” and then I see that they emailed me two days ago and I’m like, “I should just delete that.” These emails can wait a little bit more. We can treat them a little bit more like letters than phone calls, and I think that’s a helpful reminder.

Avoid Your Email Inbox During Focused Work Time – 17:09

And then the final thing I wanted to throw in is that when you are in a focused block of work, one way you can really save yourself from your tendencies of wanting to jump back into email and get absorbed in that world is don’t go in your email inbox to do the work that’s related to what you’re focusing on because that happens. We can be drafting something up and then we think of a question that we need to email someone about, and so, we go into our email inbox to email that person, and then we see all the email that we’re trying to stay away from. Or we need to look something up, and so, we go in our email inbox looking it up and again get distracted.

What I’d like to throw out there for you to think about is if you need to send someone an email, pull up a notepad or even a Word document on your computer, draft the email in there so you’re not opening up your email inbox. This lets you draft the email at the end of your focused time. Then you can copy and paste and send off that email. But it allowed you to maybe draft the email but then get back to that focused work, and then again at the end, you can send that email off.

Same if you — sometimes I just write a list, like with pen and paper next to me of, like, “Look up this thing,” or “Email this person about this.” And again, at the end of that focused block of time, then I’ll shoot off all those emails or go into my email inbox looking for the thing. But just embrace the reality that if you go in there, you’re going to get distracted. You’re going to get stressed out. You’re going to feel tempted to respond to those emails and get those dopamine hits. And so, don’t. To the extent you can, don’t go in there, and just have these placeholder things where you draft emails or write things down. Save it for the end of that focused block of time, and then send those things out. All right?

I hope that’s helpful! I know that it’s a tough tension. I think that work culture has unfortunately gotten so entitled to responsiveness at the expense of real work and smart work and creative strategy. And I think that we need to push back against that, and I think that there is more room to push back than we tend to believe that there is, especially if you’re like me, people-pleasing-type people who grew up, especially as a young associate or junior position in whatever your industry is, getting a pat on the shoulder for being so responsive is really hard to break that habit, to really spend the time where you need to, whether it’s on high-level strategy or doing the major work, whatever it is, we really need to have some of our time be protected for that focused work. And so, I hope that this gives you some freedom to do that, some nice, practical ideas of how to do that, and even some mental-game things of, like, “Ooh, catching myself going that way,” because that dopamine-hit stuff is more fun in a weird way than the slower progress of focused work.

Well, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it! I love all the support and kind words and messages. Let me know if there is another topic you want me to cover. I’m happy to dig into it. Just shoot me an email at ke***@ke********.com or send me a DM on Instagram, and regardless, thank you for being here, and I’ll catch you in the next episode!

[Upbeat Outro Music]

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