One Sentence In Your Emails Will Create Hours of Free Time For You

Experts tell us that professionals spend 28% of their day on email. That's over 2 and 1/2 hours!

But there's something you can say in your emails to make them so efficient that you can get things done more quickly. How you spend the time you save is up to you.

Here's the sentence:

"If you can, I would appreciate a response by ____, so that ____."

Here's an example: "If you can, I would appreciate a response by tomorrow at noon, so that we can prepare the presentation for the next day."

So there are two essential elements. You need to them a deadline AND you must tell them why.

Why do we need to do this? It has something to do with "ego-centrist bias". Cornell's Vanessa Bohns said there's a big gap between what an email sender sends and what they expect from the person they're sending them to.

Much to everyone's surprise, research shows that the other person isn't urgently waiting for our emails. And they also aren't jumping at the chance do what we ask. But establishing a deadline makes everything transparent. And showing the reason why there's a deadline, it makes it less like a favor to you, but a necessity for things to get done.

Experts say professionals check email 15 times a day. Using this method, and knowing when things are coming your way, you may be able to cut down on all that email checking. Maybe you can get it down to 3 or 4 times a day instead.