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Dr Emma Russell

A recent study from , Reader in Occupational and Organisational Psychology at the Business School, sheds light on how people deal with work-emails and how this affects wellbeing and performance. 

in the Instant Genius Podcast, part of BBC’s Science Focus magazine, last Monday 8 January. She explained that our work-email actions can have positive and negative effects, but simple changes can help us improve our wellbeing and performance and also that of our colleagues. 

Emma’s research identified four action categories that predict positive wellbeing and performance outcomes that will help you keep on top of your email: 

1. Be clear about your access boundaries and stick to them. For instance, you can advise your colleagues of your working times by adding a line to your signature or making use of the automatic replies feature in Outlook. This helps to manage people’s expectations and provides you with that much-needed time off to switch off from work. 
2. Triage your email and monitor it at a regular interval that feels appropriate for you, so you are always aware and can reprioritise any task if needed. There are multiple ways of keeping your inbox manageable, including deleting, archiving in folders, or flagging emails. 
3. Keep your work email for work. People who only use work-email to communicate work-relevant topics were the most effective, potentially because they had less clutter and distracting activity to contend with.
4. Be civil, courteous, and considerate in your communications. Although what counts as civil and courteous depends on the culture of the organisation, there is evidence that if you abide by what you’ve identified as the norms for civil behaviour in your organisation, your wellbeing and performance and that of the people you work with will improve. 

Emma also suggested using functions embedded within Outlook and other email systems, including the delay send function and other automatic processes, which can help you keep on top of your email, respect other people’s boundaries and work times, and improve your wellbeing and performance.

Listen to the interview with Emma on .