Emergent scholarship

Course Lessons

Ignoring email

8 min read

Lesson overview

Objective: Recognise that you don’t have to respond to every email you receive

Summary: Individual email habits shape more than just personal productivity - they influence the broader culture of academic communication. When we habitually respond to every message or work late clearing our inbox, these practices ripple through departments and institutions, creating unsustainable expectations that can lead to burnout. When you make thoughtful decisions about which emails truly require your attention, you’re not just protecting your own time - you’re contributing to a culture that values focused scholarly work over constant digital responsiveness.

Key habits:

  • Develop a quick mental triage system for incoming emails: Make deliberate decisions about engagement rather than defaulting to response
  • Build comfort with archiving ambiguous or non-essential messages: Accept that not every email requires your engagement
  • Learn to strategically convert unclear email exchanges into brief conversations when needed: Use synchronous communication to quickly resolve ambiguous requests
  • Maintain consistent boundaries around your email practices: Focus preserved mental energy on high-value academic work

Introduction

Spending time trying to decode ambiguous emails is a quick way to increase your stress levels. The time you spend trying to figure out what the sender means is time that you can’t spend on other activities. In addition, the cognitive overhead needed to understand what the sender expects may not be worth the cost. Eventually, you’ll either take a guess at how you need to respond, in which case you may confuse the recipient, or you end up explaining why you don’t understand what the sender is looking for. Unless the email explicitly requires a response, sometimes it may be better to simply ignore it and do something else by way of response.

Wrestling with ambiguous or irrelevant emails is a major source of inbox-related stress.

Cal Newport

Don’t respond to unclear emails

If you receive an email that’s ambiguous, or where the goal of the sender is unclear, call them, or take a walk to their office. Opening the conversation with, “I just saw your email and wanted to make sure I understand what you need from me”, tells your colleague that you value what they’re working on, and you want to ensure you give them what they need. This isn’t about ignoring people…only their confusing emails. It also gives them a subtle heads up that the way they wrote the email wasn’t helpful. Perhaps you could point out a few ideas from the Processing email lesson.

Ignoring the email immediately removes the stress of trying to figure out how to respond.

Checking in with the sender will communicate that you value clarity in your communication. This may even lead to some introspection around writing clear emails, improving future communication.

You can’t really expect others to be clear in what they write, unless you are too.

If nothing really good would happen if you respond, and nothing really bad would happen if you didn’t, consider ignoring the message.

Taking control of your email habits is a fundamental step in creating the head space you need for meaningful academic work. When you feel obligated to respond to every message that arrives in your inbox, you’re essentially letting your inbox dictate your priorities and attention.

By giving yourself permission to ignore ambiguous or unclear emails, you’re not just saving time – you’re actively protecting your cognitive resources for the high-value work that drives your career forward. This shift from reactive email management to intentional communication aligns with the broader goal of establishing sustainable academic workflows that prioritise deep, focused work over constant digital responsiveness. Remember that every ambiguous email you wrestle with is mental energy that could be spent on research, writing, or creative thinking.

Sustainable email practices

Individual email habits shape more than just personal productivity - they influence the broader culture of academic communication. Sustainable communication means choosing practices that preserve mental energy while maintaining effective collaboration. When you make thoughtful decisions about which emails truly require your attention, you’re not just protecting your own time - you’re contributing to a culture that values focused scholarly work over constant digital responsiveness.

The examples below identify common challenges with email habits, and provide potential solutions you can explore. Use the template on the right as a quick guide for making different choices around email.

The “quick chat” request cascade

The steady stream of “quick chat” requests via email creates a fragmented workday where deep work becomes impossible. These casual meeting requests, while often well-intentioned, can transform a potentially productive day into a series of interruptions, making it difficult to maintain focus.

Potential solutions:

  • Batch similar conversations into structured meetings
  • Create clear guidelines for when emails should become meetings
  • Set up regular office hours or team check-ins
  • Use scheduling tools for necessary one-on-one meetings
  • Protect specific time blocks for focused work

By implementing these boundaries around informal meeting requests, you create more space for meaningful work while maintaining collaborative relationships. The shift from reactive to structured communication often leads to more productive conversations and better use of everyone’s time.

Discussion thread multiplication

Email threads can quickly multiply, pulling you into discussions that aren’t directly relevant to your core academic work. These conversations often feel important in the moment but ultimately distract from your primary research, teaching, or writing goals. The pressure to stay informed and contribute to every discussion can lead to scattered attention and reduced productivity.

Potential solutions:

  • Evaluate each thread against your current priorities
  • Set up filters for discussion-based emails
  • Establish specific times for checking and responding to emails
  • Create clear criteria for engagement in discussions
  • Use email folders to organise non-urgent threads

When you become more selective about email discussions, you’ll find yourself with more mental energy for meaningful academic work. This approach isn’t about disconnecting from your colleagues, but rather about engaging more intentionally and productively.

Ambiguous message burden

Ambiguous emails create a significant cognitive burden, requiring mental effort to decipher their meaning and intent. These unclear messages often trigger chains of back-and-forth clarification emails that could have been avoided with clearer initial communication. The time spent interpreting and clarifying these messages detracts from more valuable academic activities.

Potential solutions:

  • Create and share communication guidelines
  • Convert unclear emails to brief conversations
  • Develop templates for common requests
  • Use bullet points to structure complex information
  • Request specific actions or outcomes in responses

Making this shift toward clearer communication not only saves time but also reduces stress and cognitive load. Rather than wrestling with ambiguous messages, you can focus your mental energy on the scholarly work that matters most to your academic career.

Download the template

Pause and reflect

Think about your current email response patterns. Are there messages in your inbox that you’re struggling to interpret? Consider:

  • What would happen if you simply archived that ambiguous email?
  • Could a two-minute phone call resolve what might become a lengthy email exchange?
  • Are you responding out of obligation or because the email genuinely requires your input?

Remember that not every email deserves your mental energy. By being more selective about which messages warrant your attention, you create space for work that truly matters to your academic career and personal wellbeing.

Activity

Key takeaways

  • Not every email requires a response: Developing the ability to selectively engage with email is crucial for protecting your time and mental energy. When you respond to every message out of habit or obligation, you’re essentially allowing your inbox to control your priorities and attention.

  • Ambiguous emails create unnecessary cognitive burden: Rather than spending mental energy trying to decode unclear messages, convert them into brief phone calls or office visits. This approach saves time, reduces stress, and often leads to better outcomes than lengthy email exchanges.

  • Your email habits influence broader communication culture: When you set clear boundaries around email engagement and model sustainable practices, you contribute to creating a healthier communication culture that values deep work and focused attention over constant digital responsiveness.

Resources

  • Newport, C. (2016). Deep work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world. Grand Central Publishing.
  • Newport, C. (2021). A World without email: Reimagining work in an age of communication overload. Portfolio.

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