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You sit down to tackle a big project, and within minutes, your inbox pings. A Slack message follows. By the time youve responded to those, another four have hit your inbox. Before you know it, your mornings derailed, and your deep work window is gone. Email alone consumes over a quarter of the average professionals workweek. But its not just the volume that hurts. Its how email fragments your attention, blocks deep work, and subtly sabotages your success. The average knowledge worker gets hit with 117 emails and 153 chat messages a day. And they check email on average 15 times daily, often reacting instead of prioritizing. At Lifehack Method, we coach busy professionals on how to reclaim their time and do meaningful, fulfilling work. Ive interviewed hundreds of managers and executives about how they manage email. Some are still drowning. But others have found simple, powerful systems that have changed the game (and no, its not necessary to aspire to Inbox Zero). With just a few key shifts, you can, too. Here are five proven strategies to stop letting email run your day. 1. Force yourself to close your email inbox Most professionals work with their email inbox open, just in case an urgent request comes through. But that hypervigilance crushes your focus and can cause you to be less effective as a manager. The fix is batching. Check all your communication channelsemail, Slack, Teamsin short, focused windows. Outside those windows, you close your inbox and turn off notifications. If the idea makes you nervous, start small. Try five mini batch sessions spaced throughout the day. Eventually, youll find that three 30-minute sessions are plenty, even for high-volume inboxes. What do you do during these batching sessions? Enter strategy #2: 2. Replace your folders with the Stack Method The Stack Method is a popular email folder system that professionals use to categorize each email that comes into their inbox. Instead of creating dozens of folders based on your unique workflow, every email goes to one of five folders based on the action it needs. These are the five folders: Reply: Needs a thoughtful response, but will take you more than two minutes Do: Small tasks to complete (under 15 minutes) Meetings: Scheduling or prep-related items Waiting On: Youve responded, but need follow-up Review: FYIs, CCs, or anything to skim later During your email batch sessions, your job is to clear your main inbox by sorting everything into these folders. Once sorted, take action on each folder during dedicated time blocks. This is how overwhelmed professionals regain control over their email inbox quickly, without worrying that something is falling through the cracks. 3. Use AI to prioritize, conserve mental energy, and go faster Ever left responding to an email for later only to spend more time remembering, flagging, or reopening it? Its often because we dont have the mental bandwidth to carefully type out a reply right then and there. But with voice dictation, which is three times faster than typing, layered with AI, youll find that email responses that used to take 510 minutes can now be done in under two. You can even use an AI writer (such as Chat GPT Writer, which plugs directly into Gmail) to draft a first pass, which you then review and edit. Heres a voice-dictation prompt to use on the go: Draft an email response from me [Your Name]. Tell them: [ramble your message here]. Keep it [short, informal, professional, etc.]. The AI turns your verbal mess into a polished email draft thats 80% ready to go. Executives are also using AI Agent tools like Fyxer.ai for AI-generated replies and inbox prioritization. Kara Brown is the CEO of LeadCoverage, the largest go-to-market agency that focuses on supply chain. She shares, Im sort of obsessed with [Fyxer], mostly because of the prioritization. It tells me when I get a one-to-one email versus when Im on a list serve . . . which is very handy in my very full inbox. It [also] drafts a response for me based on all the other emails that Ive written. Frankly, Fyxer is much nicer than I am! While I might write a three-word reply, like OK, thank you, it will write four or five sentences and make me sound so much nicer and polite. Its making it a lot easier to be more personal in my insanely overwhelming inbox. Jeff Smith, PhD, is the founder of QuantumIOT and a serial technology entrepreneur. He is quick to note that the best AI agent features currently offered by third parties will likely become native to your email platform of choice very soon. So, if youre not an early adopter of new tech, you have nothing to worry about. The real win really isnt inbox zero, its more like finally having the kind of assistant that weve only really ever seen on TV, he says. This isnt about outsourcing your voice. Its about expressing what you already know, but faster, cleaner, and more professionally. 4. Buy time with placeholder replies When someone emails you, theyre not usually expecting an immediate answer. What they really want is certainty that you saw it, and a clear timeline for your reply. Send a placeholder reply like this: Thanksthis is on my radar. Ill get back to you by tomorrow afternoon. Let me know if its more urgent. That one line calms the sender and gives you breathing room to craft a well-thought out response later. Another variation: If someones message is vague, dont try to decode it yourself. Reply with a quick clarifying question: Quick qare you looking for input on X, or a final decision on Y? This avoids the dread that you might erroneously interpret what they need from you, and end up needing to re-do the work anyway. 5. Replace long collaborative threads entirely When collaboration happens inside email threads, workers feel pressured to constantly check their inbox, just in case someones waiting on them. Even the best batching system can break down when your colleagues are unknowingly using your inbox as a live chat tool. Cal Newport, computer science professor and author of A World Without Email, calls this constant back-and-forth the hyperactive hive minda work style where problems are solved through an endless string of ad hoc, unscheduled messages. He calls this workflow a misery-making machine. With AI, this problem will accelerate. If youre sending more emails, faster, youd better believe that everyone else wil, too. The hive mind will become even more hyperactive. The fix is to move collaborative work to shared hubs like Google Docs (for coauthoring and commenting) and Asana or ClickUp (for task-based back-and-forth). This shift creates two clear benefits. First, it protects your inbox for what it’s meant forannouncements, logistics, and brief 1:1 communications. Second, it protects your time by shifting multi-person conversations into tools designed for asynchronous collaboration (such as Asana, which is what we use at Lifehack Method). If youre leading a team, make this an explicit policy. If youre an individual contributor, start by modeling the behaviorcommenting in docs, tagging teammates in project tools, and replying to email threads with Lets move this over to Asana. The more collaborative conversations you remove from email, the easier it becomes to manage your inbox and maintain your focus. Email doesnt have to be your biggest productivity leak These strategies arent about zeroing out your inbox for bragging rights. Theyre about protecting your focus and getting your time back. With a few small shifts, you can take back hours of time and massive amounts of cognitive energy from processing email, and reinvest it in the work that really drives you forward. Thats the kind of ROI your week needs.
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E-Commerce
Just checking in on everyones New Years resolution to get fit. Are we still doing this, or what? Whatever your answer, a good fitness tracker can be super helpful but some of them out thereincluding smartwatchescost more than my first car. Granted, it was a truly terrible car. The good news is that wearable fitness trackers dont have to cost a fortune. Here are four fantastic and affordable options thatll help you track your steps, monitor your sleep, and more. Amazfit Band 7: $50 Amazfit has been making serious waves in the budget space. Their current “Band” model, the Band 7, sports battery life up to a whopping 28 days, a vibrant display, and all the essential health tracking you’d expectheart rate, sleep, blood oxygen, stress, and several other metricsall for a very reasonable price. This is a solid pick if you want a reliable tracker that simply works. Xiaomi Smart Band 10: $70 Xiaomi consistently delivers incredible value, and its latest tracker, the Smart Band 10, is tough to beat when it comes to features versus price. It gives you all the essentials, and more: step counting, heart rate, sleep tracking, smart notifications, heart rate, pulse oximeter, ambient light sensor, sleep tracking, swimming mode, up to three weeks of battery, and a ton of styles and colors to choose from. Fitbit Inspire 3: $100 If you’re a fan of the Fitbit ecosystem (now owned by Google), the Inspire 3 is your best bet for a budget-friendly option. It packs all the core features: steps, distance, calories burned, sleep stages, stress relief, blood oxygen, heart rate tracking, up to 10 days of battery, and more, all in a no-fuss design. Plus, you get access to Fitbit’s excellent app for data analysis and community features, including six months of premium features. Think of it as the reliable, slightly less flashy cousin of the more expensive Fitbits. Garmin Vivosmart 5: $150 Okay, let’s bring in a name known for serious fitness tracking, but on a smaller scale. The Garmin Vivosmart 5 is an excellent choice if you want the reliability and accuracy of Garmin without the price of a full-blown running watch. It’s a simple, minimalist band that tracks your steps, sleep, heart rate, hydration, respiration, blood oxygen, energy levels, and features up to seven days of battery. This is a solid, get-it-done option for people who want accurate data from a trusted fitness brand.
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E-Commerce
In 2013, at the age of 22, I found myself in what many in my field would consider a dream position: working in New York City as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. The position offered everything young professionals are typically told to value: competitive compensation, a prestigious brand name, world-class offices in Manhattan, comprehensive benefits, and a clear career trajectory. I was at the epitome of certaintyor so it seemed. Beneath this veneer of security, doubt was brewing. I recognized that my long-term skill development would become increasingly specialized, which would limit my options for the future. Specialization promised stability, but it also trapped me on a single track. And in hindsight, Im glad I stepped off it. THE SPECIALIZATION TRAP In 2025,150 companies have laid off 72,808 tech workers. Many of them had developed expertise in highly specialized roles that did not easily transfer to new industries or functions. The World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, 70% of skills used in most jobs will have changed. This means that the skills that make you indispensable right now may become obsolete in five years. However, David Epsteins research in his book Range shows that generalists outperform specialists in complex, unpredictable environments. This is because they can connect insights across disciplines, adapt to new contexts, and transfer skills from one domain to another. A CAREER BUILT ON RANGE In 2014, my friend Taylor (not his real name) told me he was confused about his career. After earning an English degree, he joined Teach for Americas prestigious program, and started teaching in an underserved community. Great on paper. However, he wondered if this was where he could make the best impact. He pivoted into coding and before long, he was landing tech roles with increasing responsibility, including working as an agile scrum master for Nike. As Taylor climbed the corporate ladder at Nike, his coding skills that got him in the door became less and less relevant.What really mattered were the skills hed been building outside his technical expertise, like the ability to read a room, manage diverse personalities, and find creative solutions to complex problems. His English major background, teaching experience, and coding career had each contributed uniquely to his toolkit. THE GENERALIST SKILLS YOU SHOULD NURTURE In my work with thousands of young professionals for Venture for Canada, I have found that while specialization holds a lot of value, the best skill in an uncertain environment is the ability to adapt, learn, and make connections across different domains.You can build these skills by focusing on:1) Communicating effectively: The ability to articulate thoughts clearly, listen deeply, and navigate complex interpersonal dynamics becomes particularly crucial for those embarking on their professional journeys. I have observed how young people who prioritize developing their communication skills often find themselves better equipped to weather uncertainties. 2) Building genuine connections: In the early days of fundraising for Venture for Canada, rejection letters piled up fast. But things started to turn around when I stopped trying to present a perfect facade. Instead of just running through polished pitches, I started sharing the real storythe sleepless nights, the moments of doubt, and the deep belief that kept me going despite it all. Rather than weakening my position, this honesty strengthened it. 3) Collaborating effectively: In any collaborative effort, especially in uncertain or fast-moving environments, two things are essential: being reliable and managing conflict head on. 4) Mastering your time and focus: In his book How Will You Measure Your Life?, Clayton Christensen provides valuable insights into effective time management. He emphasizes the importance of purposeful resource allocation. This means being intentional about where you spend your time, ensuring that activities contribute meaningfully to your goals.5) Staying curious: Curiosity allows you to reframe uncertainty not as something to fear, but as an opportunity to explore. Instead of seeing the unknown as a barrier, you start to view it as a space for possibility. Every challenge becomes a puzzle, a series of what ifs and why nots waiting to be solved. THE GEN Z ADVANTAGE The interesting paradox is that while the career landscape is more uncertain than it arguably has ever been before, you are also better equipped to adapt than any generation before you. Older generations did not grow up teaching themselves how to code or learning other skills through YouTube tutorials. While the landscape is more challenging in many ways, your competitive advantage is that you have grown up with unprecedented access to knowledge, tools, and global communities. You can teach yourself a skill for free online that once required months of formal training. You can connect directly with peers and experts around the world, share your work publicly, and receive feedback in real time.If you combine your built-in adaptability with the deliberate cultivation of generalist skills, you can capitalize on the current volatility to create opportunities.
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E-Commerce
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