Managing Your Email: a Primer for INFJs

If you're an INFJ, there's one thing about email you already know: it's so much better than a telephone call.

Emails give you a chance to think about your answers before you have to give them.

But the other truth is that a crowded email box can feel just as suffocating as a crowded party, and every little line in your inbox represents a person you have to interact with and . . . and you find yourself shying away from even clicking on the tab in your browser that holds your inbox, because just the idea of looking at all those people makes you feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

How to Manage
But if you don't answer your email, well, you're being rude. And we INFJs 1) actually like people and 2) have very clear ideas about right and wrong, and ignoring people with a legitimate claim on our attention is wrong. So how to manage?


1) Give yourself a day. You don't have to answer email the instant you receive it. Read it as soon as you get it, so your brain can start mulling over your response, but don't pressure yourself to respond instantly. You'll feel better about an answer you've had time to think about.

2) Answer the easy ones first. A corollary to the above rule: do answer the easy ones quickly. Some emails are easy, and you know what you want to say. If you know what you want to say: just say it. That'll keep the crowding in your inbox down, which will keep your stress down.

3) Clear your inbox regularly. Depending on your life and responsibilities, this could be a once-a-week chore or a once-a-day chore. But do clear your inbox on a regular basis. Just sit yourself down and make yourself answer every single email (that's a day old or older) before you let yourself get up again. Pretend someone will kill you if you don't do it, and you'll find that you actually can come up with the words when you're forced.

4) It doesn't have to be perfect. Yes, this is probably the hardest rule. You don't want to answer unless you're sure you have the right answer. I understand. I'm there with you. But it's unkind not to answer just because your pride demands perfection. Be kind, and be willing to use less-than-perfect verbage and unideal answers. Just answer. It's the right thing to do.

5) Clear your inbox completely. Your email system surely has a filing system: use it. After you've answered something, file it and get it out of your inbox. The goal is to have a completely clear inbox at least once a week. The empty space will make you feel so good.


I'd love to hear both from other INFJs, to know if any of these tricks are ones they use, and to hear from other personality types, to hear what works for them!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

on the deceptive ease of the internet age

 You know, I keep putting off these chores that "will just take a minute on the computer" and wondering why I put off things that seem so easy . . . but then I sit down and do them and find that "just a minute at the computer" is a wild underestimation and then I remember "ah, yes, this is why I put this off".
Anyway, CSA renewal? Done. Registering the eldest for next semester's local homeschool P. E. class? Done. Requesting books for the subjects of the next few weeks' history and science lessons? Done. Cleaning out my email box/responding to blogs in open tabs/bookmarking interesting sites? Never, never, never done.
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell