For those of you with busy careers/families how do you manage email/whatsapp/texts etc

[crawlingovertheline]

I’ve not counted recently but I reckon I get more than 100 emails a day, work and private, plus 10-20ish WhatsApp messages plus occasional texts, messenger messages etc. I feel constantly overwhelmed and stressed because I’ve not got back to someone or I’m looking like I’m ghosting someone (example of this might be someone I don’t know sends me their CV then follows up with 3 WhatsApp messages to check I’ve got it.

Any advice on how we’re meant to cope with this in the modern world? Historically we’d open the post and a secretary would answer letters, or someone would phone then when you leave the office you can no longer take that call.

Im not a brilliant communicator at the best of times and just find it all really hard to cope with. urgh.

Any advice?

YABU - it’s life, get on with it!
YANBU- agree, it’s a modern problem

I hear you OP - it feels really overwhelming at times. I've recently got a work mobile that really helps - I literally put it away in my work bag and don't read it after a certain time.

My employer has a strict 8am - 6pm communication window though, and we are only allowed to send scheduled emails to arrive the next morning if we need to communicate after 6pm.

When I had everything on the same phone it was like a rabbit hole being dragged into reading / emailing / thinking about work.

Work emails are part of normal working life - you respond as it’s a part of your job.
As a family we don’t use emails but have an immediate WhatsApp group for DH, DT’s and I and a wider group one which includes parents and siblings. These I respond to multiple times a day, it’s part of our our family works.
Friends - we WhatsApp as and when we can - no time pressure to respond.

Yeah, pretty much the same here.

Plus a lot of work emails are spam so they just get deleted.

I only look at personal emails at my lunch break and in evenings (the volunteer programmes I am involved in know this).
I use the iPhone ‘modes’ like driving and focus etc. this means that if a small group of defined people contact me I see it otherwise all other notifications are switched off

friends don’t expect an instant reply - one of my very good friends can take days to reply and it’s just a known about him (if it’s urgent we phone).

you don’t owe the people who are asking you for favours an instant (or indeed any) reply. The chasing via WhatsApp is plain rude IMO

You need to separate work and personal.

Do you have separate emails and phone numbers? Don't give work people your personal information.

Only do work in work time, if you are self employed pick a working date and only reply then rather than evenings and weekends.

It's about boundaries.

I cannot imagine having that many personal messages that you can't reply. Unless you are on group WhatsApp for kids kids and i then just mute them and look once a day or every few days.

Work emails: I read everything first and flag what needs attention. I work responsively with elected representatives and the public so I can’t leave anything unread.

Texts/WhatsApp: 🤷🏽‍♀️ Depends who it is.. son, mum, husband and best friend get replied to ASAP. The rest tend to get a “sorry, sorry” hours/the next day.

I turn email notifications on emails and WhatsApp and diarise time each day to review and respond. Only way I can cope with all the pulls on my time and keep sane!

I don’t respond to anything work related before or after I finish. If they want me to do that they can pay me to be on call 24/7.

If it’s my husband, son, sister, parents they will get answered immediately.

I don’t have a ‘friendship group’ by choice. I have two best friends who know that if they need me, they can have me, but I’m not interested in listening to drama, gossip, general small talk! Luckily, they’re the same!

How are people you don't know sending you messages? If it's a work thing, ignore it out of working hours.

100 emails a day?!?

I have an auto-reply on my self-employed work emails that states thank you for your email, due to my working pattern I aim to reply within 48 hours.

Are the emails actually needing replied to? Make sure you unsubscribe from marketing ones as they come in unless you do actually need daily emails from random sites you bought one thing from a few years ago.

WhatsApp groups - mute the ones you never need to reply to immediately (my DD's sport group has a few different groups and they are all muted, I check them as and when I remember or if I'm replying to other messages I'll have a quick read through).

Do you have family groups that can be merged into one big chat?

It is modern life and you have to control it and not let it control you. You do not have to respond to everything all the time.

Mute group/school WhatsApp’s and only check as and when needed.

Mute any “info sharing” Teams groups at work (“does anyone have a few slides that explains our business strategy for team meeting” kind of thing) Look at it as and when you have the time/ can be arsed.

Ignore any message that comes through on Teams that just says “Hi!” or “Hello” and then nothing else! Do not bite on their one word no context bait - they often go away!

Put your out of office on if you need focused time. You can see that someone is OOO on Outlook and Teams and sometimes you will be lucky and someone will not bother to email/Teams you and go elsewhere for whatever it is they need.

Last week I was averaging over 800 a day, although that was an admittedly busy week, and perhaps...50 emails required a response, if that.

I have a Chief of Staff and a PA who manage my inbox and diary as well as a specific email address for my office which most emails go to. They flag things that I need to respond to formally via email throughout the day and I have a Teams chat with my deputies where they post quick comments on things they urgently need a steer/guidance on but not my actual input and I literally just thumbs up if I agree - if I don't agree, I ring them and talk it through. Anything that I don't get to during the day, I take home with me and do once DDs are asleep. DH and I have been sitting at the dining table recently and making a 'date' of it as he has a similarly busy job.

For things related to my dog breeding and/or rescuing (my true passion) I do it all on the weekend where I can. Outside of family and 3-4 friends from school, 2 of which work in the same organisation as me, my social circle is deliberately small. I see my parents or PIL almost every day and my DSis several times a week at set times, so we tend not to talk outside that.

Sometimes it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day but I chose this job because I find genuine satisfaction in it and I love being busy. I'd be bored and miserable in a job that was quieter.

I feel exactly the same way. There are far too many modes of communication nowadays and I like to be phone-free when I'm with my children, family and friends which reduces the time available for replying.

For my sanity I have given up being on top of personal comms and instead prioritise responses based on need just like I do at work. E.g. if someone needs support or help with something/birthday messages etc I'll reply quickly, otherwise it could be a week before I reply. Despite my poor comms I still have strong relationships because I invest in them and I show up when it matters. I think the only thing you can do is manage expectations and prioritise in the same way. Don't waste hours of your life responding to messages every day.

I have asked people to only whatsapp me rather than text, messenger, Insta, emails etc but they still do it! The other challenge is that responding is never ending - most people respond quickly so I'm very quickly back to where I started with 20-30 messages to reply to. Honestly wish we could go back to being less easily contactable like life pre smartphones.

I’m fine with work emails. I have a system that mostly works. I wish people wouldn’t leave me long work voicemails, though. I very rarely listen to them and prefer to just call the person back when I have time and see the missed call.

I find WhatsApp a complete nightmare to manage on my personal life, though. I am not in many group chats and leave if people add me. But I find the expectation that because you message me and I may have ‘seen’ it, I need to answer quickly fucking unbearable.

a) I manage my time, not you. I will decide when to reply.

b) am very, very busy during the week and in the tiny amounts of time I have to myself I don’t want to look at my bloody phone!!!!

c) It’s not a sleight against you if I take a few days to reply.

I also wish we could go back to the days where we weren’t all supposed to be available all the time!

I am not sore I understand the problem. Historically, you would be unreachable after living the office. So what changed? You simply turn you work phone off. Nobody at work should be using your private number for work-related issues.
If someone you don't know sends you a CV, how do they get access to your personal number to follow up? Make sure you take it off the job advert.
My team knows that I only check my emails twice a day as there is no such thing as "urgent email". If it is urgent, they need to call me.
When I do check emails, I delete everything that's been sent to the entire team. Some people are infuriatingly obsessed with "reply to all" button. No, we don't need to know that you wished Sandra a happy retirement. Sending this to Sandra only would suffice.
Personal messages - I only keep WhatsApp downloaded on my phone and I mute all the groups. And I don't have work email connected to my phone either.
Nobody died so far and my phone is blissfully silent most of the day.

Emails - no notifications. Instant delete of irrelevant ones when I go to check them.
WhatsApp - almost every chat muted, only check it when I want to.

I use the flagging system on work emails to note ones I haven't dealt with, and try to process them all within a week according to urgency.

If I've been away a while I go to the Unread tab and sort by sender. Really quick to delete all the gumph then. Then sort by heading so you can see the trends and threads.

WhatsApp has a desktop version - I find that easier for messages about dates/payments and typing quickly/blitzing through. Pinning important threads and using the unread tab also helps.

A hundred work emails is not that mad? I get that regularly. And DH gets 300 or so a day if not more (he's a senior VP in a huge MNC).
For work emails: I answer a bunch in the morning on my commute. I then set aside two chunks of the day to work through them.
I answer all emails within a 36 hour period.

If someone sent you their CV and sent you a WhatsApp follow, then in my reply to the CV I would say: Thanks for forwarding this. In the future please note I receive a high volume of emails daily so I answer all emails in a 72 hour period. Please do not message me on WhatsApp unless you have not heard from me within that time frame.

WhatsApps: I don't answer till dinner time UNLESS they are time sensitive, aka I am going to meet someone. Then I answer all in one go. Or if I'm done with emails on my commute, I might answer them.

I also 'archive' a lot of group chats where I've been added but I participate minimally. I only look at them once a week or so.

Conversely I block out time. Unless there is a crisis I do not look at my phone between 4:30-6:30 as that is family time.

Yes its gone mad. Im not too bad a school app we help on buses. So texts from principal. Daughter older so does her own (sports team). Ive few friends. Not too many whatsapp. Had to mute a colleague she kept phoning at wends....

I don't have any what's app groups because they're not a thing where I am. A fair few fb and messenger groups though. The school app is by far the worst - so many messages and notifications that aren't relevant to my child! I ended up disabling notifications and checking weekly. Any invitations, dates for the diaries go in the diary immediately and are rsvped. As a rule I leave everything on unread until I have time to deal with it. Emails are automatically sorted into folders so I can see at a glance what can be deleted or prioritized. I tend to do admin on Saturday mornings.

I have had periods in my life where I would get several hundred work emails and whatsapp messages a day, and I did various combinations of the following: turning off notifications and the red numbers that show how many unread you have for all apps on my phone and pop ups on my computer so I wasn't being constantly bombarded by them; having dedicated time at the beginning and end of each work day to triage, delete and file email; turning off read receipts and the 'last seen' function on whatsapp; taking work email off my phone altogether so I wasn't tempted to spend my evenings drafting responses; having a three working day turnaround time for non urgent work email; prioritising social messages by time sensitivity. It is horrendous constantly feeling at the mercy of people wanting things from you and longer term I changed my job!

I respond to work e-mails in work hours. If someone wants to message me at 8pm that's fine, but they won't be getting a response from me.

I'm not in any WhatsApp groups because, frankly, fuck that shit.

Messages from friends and family aren't a chore and I just respond as and when I want to.

It’s the feeling of constantly being available. Prior to Covid, if you left the office at 5 then that was it until the next day. Now people work basically 24/7, factor in family stuff and friends and it never stops.

You don’t have to respond to everyone and every message. I doubt all 100 emails a day are relevant or require a response. WhatsApp it depends on the message - muting groups is very helpful, particularly school ones when something kicks off.

You need to out in place your own boundaries.

I have separate work and personal mobiles. I don’t look at my work mobile during the weekend or after about 7pm. If someone really needed me they can ring.