The Art of Managing Your Communications

From my perspective—and that of several researchers—blocking communication channels is not a viable solution. I completely agree, though, that being overwhelmed by communication brings its share of challenges. As the leader of a growing company, I experience this every day: I receive a very large number of important messages, whether externally through email, Braver, Microsoft Teams and LinkedIn, or internally through Slack and our various specialized work tools.

To do my job well, I have had to learn to manage this volume of incoming communication.

I emphasize the word “learn” because I do not believe this is an innate skill. It is, however, an important one to develop when your role involves interacting with many people.

Rather than seeing it as overload, I prefer to think of it as a privilege: the privilege of being in a position where my decision-making authority comes with responsibilities I need to honour.

Here are the tips and habits I have developed over the years. I am confident you can adapt them to your own situation.

Managing priorities

Prioritizing incoming communications is challenging, especially when they arrive through different channels. One of my recurring worries is forgetting to answer an important message. To manage that and reduce my mental load, I have become an enthusiastic user of these two features:

1. Mark a message as unread

I love this feature! It is particularly useful in an instant messaging tool. For example, an employee sends me a message and I read it to see whether it is urgent. If it is not, I mark it as unread so the notification reappears and reminds me to return to it later in the day. This underrated feature—yes, really!—is available in Braver.

2. Set a reminder on an email or message (snooze)

Saying I love this feature is an understatement! I use it constantly, and I believe it has completely transformed my ability to manage email. If an important email arrives but does not need a response that day, I set a reminder so it returns to my inbox at a specific future date and time. It then disappears, making the remaining messages easier to work through. The catch? For an optimist like me, “8 a.m. two days from now” always sounds like a time when I will have more room in my schedule. So it is essential that I actually reserve enough time then to deal with emails that are important without being truly urgent.

I am looking forward to making this feature available in Braver. It should not be long!

Identifying low-effort communications

Our energy and time are limited resources, so learning where to invest them is essential. As a perfectionist, I have sometimes spent far too much time drafting particular emails or messages. In some situations, that effort makes sense; in others, it is simply time lost.

Know when a little imperfection is fine

My natural inclination is to reread a message three times, run it through Antidote and debate whether to end with “thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you” or “thanks, and have a great day.” That work can quickly become draining, especially when you are handling fifty conversations a day. I have therefore learned to assess my relationship with the other person quickly: if there is a strong foundation of trust, I can allow a message to be a little imperfect or contain a minor typo. I know that person knows me and will not interpret those small errors as a lack of professionalism.

I choose my battles, and in this case efficiency wins over a perfectly polished presentation.

Communications that take less than two minutes

If I can deal with a message in a minute or two and have a little time right now, I handle it immediately. Sometimes we spend more time thinking about and anticipating a task than the task itself would take. Communications can be a source of stress, and taking action is often enough to reduce that stress.

Closing the loop

No response is not a response

Communication necessarily involves more than one person. How we manage it affects not only our own work but other people’s work too. Giving someone an answer—whether it is a refusal or a simple thank you—lets them consider the conversation complete.

Following up is not impolite

I used to feel uncomfortable following up when someone had not replied. Then I realized it is human to miss a message occasionally, not through bad intentions but simply because of the circumstances. Since I appreciate a reminder when I have forgotten to respond, I no longer hold back from following up respectfully when an expected answer seems to have been overlooked.

Archive your conversations or emails

When an exchange is finished, I archive it. Not every communication tool offers this feature, but I use it extensively in my email inbox, and we included it in Braver from day one. Archiving a message removes it from my main inbox, which can then serve as a reasonably up-to-date to-do list.

For me, archiving provides real mental relief: if it is archived, it is handled!

When communications lead to other tasks

Very often, a message leads to another task. That can make it difficult to decide when we will be able to deal with the communication, because we first need to make room for the work it creates.

That is when a system for prioritizing tasks more generally becomes important. I say “system” because, whatever tool you use, the key is to have a process that works. Sometimes simpler is better. For me, that means writing down each day what I need to do and manage. If something is not done, I carry it over to the next day. It is simple, effective and lets me use tools already at hand: paper, a notes application and so on. For power users, communication tools that integrate with task-management software are also a good option.

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If you have tips or habits different from mine, please write to me. Perhaps a guide to managing communications will accompany the Braver platform one day!