Reducing Email Notifications

Your product isn’t annoying users. Your notifications are. A user once sent me a screenshot: “60 notifications before lunch. Please make it stop.” The SaaS team thought more alerts meant more engagement. They were wrong. The Notification Storm Every small action triggered something: • Comment • Profile view • Digest • Summary • Reminder 60+ per user. Every day. Result? People ignored everything… or unsubscribed. One user said it perfectly: “I can’t tell what’s important, so I ignore it all.” The Real Problem: • No priority. • No logic. • Everything felt urgent. A password reset had the same weight as a random like. That’s not engagement. That’s noise. The Fix: We built a simple Notification Logic System: • Clear priority levels • Smart timing • User controls 6 Weeks Later: 🔔 Engagement: +31% 🙌 Unsubscribes: -45% 🕐 Fewer context switches Users finally said: “I actually read them now.” The Truth: More notifications don’t create engagement. Useful ones do. If you send 15+ a day, you’re training users to ignore you. Want the Notification Logic Framework? Comment “NOTIFY” and I’ll send it.

Turn off those email notifications. They're killing your focus. Every ping, every pop-up, every "you've got mail" moment breaks your concentration. Here's what happens when notifications are on: ➜ Your brain switches tasks constantly ➜ You lose 23 minutes refocusing after each interruption ➜ You check emails 96 times per day on average ➜ Your productivity drops by 40% The solution is simple but powerful: Turn. Them. Off. Here's how to reclaim your focus: 1. Disable all email notifications ➜ On your phone ➜ On your desktop ➜ In your browser 2. Set specific email check times ➜ Morning (10:00) ➜ After lunch (14:00) ➜ End of day (16:30) 3. Communicate your new system ➜ Tell your team ➜ Update your email signature ➜ Set clear expectations The results? ➜ Deeper work sessions ➜ Better output quality ➜ Less stress ➜ More accomplished tasks I've tested this system with hundreds of professionals, and the results are consistent: 90% report better focus within the first week. 85% never go back to notifications. Ready to transform your workday? Start with a 3-day test: Turn off ALL email notifications. Check emails only 3 times daily. Track your productivity. 📌 Do you ever stop the task you're working on to look at that email that just popped up? _______________________________________________ Hi 🌟 I'm Stephanie! An expert Executive Assistant dedicated to supporting executives with exceptional organizational and communication skills. 🌼 Keep smiling and stay productive!

Email isn’t going away anytime soon. But it doesn’t have to run your day. Try these 5 habits to take back control of your inbox and reduce the overwhelm. They’ll save you time, sharpen your focus, and help you feel on top of your game. (And yes, they actually work.) 𝐄 – Exit your inbox • Schedule 3–4 set times to process email (AKA batching). • Stay out of your inbox in between. • This one shift boosts focus and wins back loads of time. (You’re welcome.) 𝐌 – Mute notifications • Turn off email alerts (yes, on both desktop and phone). • Fewer dings = fewer distractions. • You’ll stop playing inbox defence and feel more in control. 𝐀 – Apply the 4 Ds • Read once, then:  • Delete  • Do  • Delegate  • Defer • Defer with intention. Use a task app. Or add a category if you write your to-dos by hand. • Decide and move on. 𝐈 – Integrate simple systems • File emails in just 1 folder! Feels counterintuitive, but it saves time. • Use rules or filters to triage and stay organised automatically. • A few smart systems = a calmer inbox. 𝐋 – Leverage AI to draft emails • Let AI write the first draft, then make it yours. • Use BLUF: start with the bottom line up front (AI helps with this!) • Clear replies, less mental load, faster responses • Try Smart Compose (Gmail) or QuickSteps (Outlook) to speed up repeat replies. 💙 Thanks for reading. 💬 What’s your favourite timesaving email tip? Share it in the comments. ♻️ Repost to help your network master their inbox too.

Emails are killing CSM productivity on a daily basis. They have become a menace & an interruption at work! Here's the Math, as a CSM: - If you manage your emails well/ have a large enterprise BoB - you get ~30 emails daily - Now if on an average you spend 5 mins/ email - This is 150 mins (2.5 hrs.) spent just on emails - Which is more than 30% of your working hrs. - Now after each email a person needs an avg. 64 secs to focus back - So adding that to the time spent (another ~30 mins) - With just ~30 emails a CSM is spending at least 3 hrs. of the work day Imagine the CSMs managing SMB customers(scale set-up), younger products, early lifecycle customers. They will end up doing this dance for almost the entire work day. When do they actually get the time to work? CS emails need to reduce; they are a: 1. Time sinkhole: you start the day with a plan, end it with most of the time spent on emails! Email is a habit forming product that provides variable rewards by building uncertainty. 2. Distraction: every “ping” or "notification" is like a dog whistle for your focus. There go your precious minutes getting the focus back. 3. Meeting killer: you get an "important" email right before a customer meeting & even though you are in front of one customer, your mind is with another. 4. False sense of accomplishment: email is just an engagement mechanism, it is not work. Most of us end up using them as a distraction, to give us a false sense of accomplishment. Some of my suggestions & learnings: 1. To receive fewer emails, send fewer emails: somethings are just a meeting/ a call/ well don't need any communication. 2. Batch processing: set specific time slots to work on emails. Yes, this means no more checking every 5 minutes like a junkie. 3. Unsubscribe: cut the noise. If it’s not critical, hit unsubscribe, eliminate unwanted emails. Product updates should be a board. 4. Templates: stop typing the same responses over & over. Use templates & tailor with specific details. Keep it crisp, no one wants an essay. 5. Email tools: get tech help. Tools like Boomerang or SaneBox are great for managing the chaos. 6. Filter & tag: use filters & labels to organize & prioritize. Your inbox should be working for you, not the other way around. Technology is an enabler only till we are in control & it works for us - otherwise, it is a distraction or worse an addiction. P.S. Those constant Slack pings or group chats are not doing us any favor either. Block 1:1 https://lnkd.in/gjQxGq7f for coaching or structuring CS playbooks/ team/ tech. in your org. #Email #Communication #Distraction #DeepWork #Focus #CS #CustomerSuccess #CustomerSuccessManager #CSM #CSLeaders #Founders #CXOs #B2B #SaaS

Most people think an 💌 email preference center is a marketing feature. It is not. It is a systems "design" feature. When I consult on ESP & marketing email systems, we learned pretty quickly that users do not usually hate notifications. They hate uncontrolled notifications. There is a HUGE difference. An email preference center is essentially a control panel for communication. The same way your computer gives users a place to manage printers, sound devices, and startup programs, a "good" preference center gives subscribers a place to manage attention. You can start with a simple: 'frequency option' The mistake many companies make is treating unsubscribes as failures. They are clearly not. What is actually happening is that the user is trying to solve a resource allocation problem. They have a finite inbox, finite attention, finite storage and finally, finite patience. (some will argue "short" too, and I will not argue) If your only option is (a) receive everything or (b) receive nothing, eventually they will choose the later (it's just a matter of time). #churn A well-designed preference center should ask/answer a few questions: • What kinds of emails do you want? • How often do you want them? • Which ones are important? • Which ones can wait? • How do you want us to contact you? That is it. 🎯 Keep it simple. No dark patterns. No maze of checkboxes. No guilt trips about leaving the list. The irony is that giving people MORE control usually results in keeping MORE subscribers. Because when users feel trapped, they leave. When users feel respected, they stay. The best email preference centers are not marketing tools at all. They are user interfaces for #trust. And trust, much like system stability, is hard to earn and very, very, very easy to lose. #emailmarketing #inboxmechanic

8:00am. Check emails. 8:20am. Reply to Slack. 8:35am. Team meeting. 9:12am. Someone drops a "quick question" into the chat and your focused work is gone before it started. You haven't opened the one thing you actually meant to do today. Your brain isn't multitasking. It's task switching. And every switch leaves 'attention residue' that has to clear before you can think properly again (which is why the ninth email of the morning takes longer to process than the first). I saw this from the inside as a partner at KPMG, running a division of around 1,800 people. My diary was full every single day. But the work that actually moved the needle, and the technical judgement calls on client work, rarely happened between 9 and 5. They happened at 9pm. When the pings had finally stopped. Out of a 10-hour day, most people get about 2 hours of real deep focus. (Real data from the big companies I work with.) The rest gets eaten by meetings, messages, and reacting to whatever lands next. Three things changed that for me: ✅ Notifications off, not just quieter Not "check less often." Off. Your brain treats every buzz as a decision it has to make right now, whether you look at it or not. ✅ Messages in batches, not on tap Constant availability trains the people around you to expect an instant reply. Which means you end up managing everyone else's urgency instead of your own priorities. ✅ One block, protected, before the first meeting lands Usually the morning. Because once someone else has claimed your calendar, your time belongs to them, not you. The goal was never more hours in the day. It's longer stretches where you can actually get stuff done. __ 📌 Get a high-resolution PDF of the infographic (and 80 others) when you sign-up for my weekly newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/ekMwY4-s You'll get my weekly thoughts on easier, more impactful leadership. __ Follow me (Mostyn Wilson) for more real ways to succeed at senior levels. __ This content is taken from my Sustaining Success leadership development series. Message me to find out more if your team could benefit from a change in how they work.