Most of us struggle to keep up with the constant influx of communication – emails, texts, chat messages, and social media. It’s a lot of conversing that can be disruptive to our productive flow and overwhelm our desire to socialize. A commonly recommended solution to controlling how much time and attention we allocate to communication is to turn off notifications. A great suggestion and one I highly recommend. However, if you’re even slightly paranoid, you may worry about missing something important, which keeps you checking your inbox even with notifications turned off. Additionally, there never seems to be enough time in the day to dedicate solely to correspondence. To solve this, wrangle the communication chaos by habit stacking it.

What is habit stacking?

Simply put, habit stacking is aligning multiple tasks that make sense to do together, anchored by something you already routinely do.

How to habit stack communication?

There are many things you can habit stack your communication management with. However, I have found the most successful habit anchor to be drinking beverages. 

Try adding blocks to your calendar designated for responding to all of those emails, texts, and messages, but also align it with a soothing beverage break. 

Here are a few fun names to make the blocks of time more appealing – and easy to remember!

• Coffee + Correspondence
• Tea + Touch Base
• Sips + Scribbles

You may only need 15 minutes to enjoy your beverage and get through all of your messages, but if you need longer, book it in your calendar! Set it up as a recurring task and keep it like a meeting. That means not double-booking yourself, but moving it to accommodate other items that pop up on your calendar. Tip: Put your communication block on your calendar as a “free/available” event so scheduling assistants won’t see it as busy.

Need additional tips for managing your emails? Start with my free download to help you clean out your inbox or this post about the five email templates you need to use.