Do you shy away from sending important messages? Does your stomach churn when you’re awaiting a reply after emailing your boss? If so, you likely battling with email send anxiety. This common challenge can happen to anyone, but simple adjustments make all the difference.
This is a real issue: a ZeroBounce survey found that 88% of people use email every single day, and 56% of the surveyed people have three email addresses. An average American employee spends 2.6 hours of their workday “facing” emails, finds McKinsey.
Many of them are simple two-liner emails from their boss, some are sales pitches made using custom email marketing templates, and some could be simple newsletters, with most of them not requiring one to reply. But the ones that do require replies can shoot up anxiety levels for many.
So, in this article, we will be showing you how to recognize symptoms of email anxiety and how to deal with it. We will talk about effective actionable tips most people can employ regardless of what triggers their email anxiety. Just keep reading!
What is Email Send Anxiety?
Email send anxiety refers to excessive feelings of stress, tension, or worry during the process of emailing others. It can happen at any stage – drafting initial messages, revising content repeatedly, hovering over the send button, or checking compulsively post-send.
Here are some common anxiety symptoms around sending emails:
- Avoiding sending important emails for extended periods
- Overthinking word choice and phrasing for hours
- Endlessly revising sentence structures before finally sending
- Feeling nauseous or tense while awaiting reactions to sent messages
- Obsessively refreshing your inbox expecting responses after emailing someone
However, the exact reasons behind email anxiety vary from perfectionism and fear of judgment to the pressure to respond promptly, and that’s understandable.
But you can manage them with small, incremental changes to your habits to prevent the feeling of anxiety from crippling you when sending emails.
Do You Actually Have Email Send Anxiety?
Before exploring solutions to email send anxiety, let us first figure out if you actually have it or if it is a short phase that you are dealing with.
First, consider whether your stress represents standard distraction versus true anxiety requiring relief. Ask yourself if these scenarios seem familiar:
- You are reviewing an email before sending it but end up painstakingly editing it over and over for hours at a stretch because you don’t feel the tone conveys your thoughts precisely enough before allowing yourself to send it.
- Your heart starts racing when you receive a message marked “urgent” from your manager even though skimming the content, it seems to be a fairly routine message.
- You end up compulsively re-reading old sent email threads every now and then, worried that you conveyed ideas improperly or responded in a way that might be misconstrued.
- You feel tense and refreshed your inbox repeatedly after emailing time-sensitive deliverables to a client/manager who demanded a rapid turnaround from you.
If you feel that these emotional responses and patterns are similar to your daily experiences, I have got you covered. The tips below will definitely make things better for you but don’t hesitate to seek professional support if anxiety persists despite your best solo efforts.
5 Proven Tips to Finally Overcome Email Anxiety
Now that you understand the psychology behind common triggers, small adjustments to your daily emailing routine and mindset can yield big mental health rewards:
#1 Draft First, Send Later for Important Messages
Resist the urge to endlessly wordsmith initial drafts at 3 AM to get messages perfect. Instead, simply outline your main ideas or requests first without fixating on phrasing perfectly during the late-night inspiration strike.
Let the message rest as a draft, then deliberately revisit it with fresh eyes the next morning before thoughtfully finalizing and sending it. This technique eases needless revisions centered on impossible standards.
#2 Check Emails at Specific Limited Times to Limit Exposure to Fresh Correspondence
Constant email pop-up notifications on your devices deliberately disrupt attention, compound stress around keeping up, and condition an unhealthy urgency around replying.
For greater mental space, consciously choose only 2-3 fixed times to fully focus on processing new emails during work hours. Limiting volume and spur-of-the-moment replies creates helpful psychological distance from the urgency email providers deliberately manufacture.
Creating dedicated slots for checking emails helps you limit exposure to new correspondence and effectively wind up the pending ones before investing your time and energy in new ones.
#3 Notice Underlying Emotional Triggers
When drafting an email, tune into the physical tension and emotional triggers arising in your body. Identify any perfectionistic beliefs or precise root fears. This could be seeming unprofessional, receiving critical feedback, coming across as demanding or facing resentment.
Simply naming the sources of strain rather than repressing reactions helps evaluate whether excessive worry fits the facts of the situation. Does the receiver truly require such finely tuned language, given your relationship and their known temperament?
#4 Switch to Phone Calls or Meetings
For emotionally complex email discussions prone to chronically misconstruing tone due to lack of vocal cues, temporarily switch channels to phone calls or meetings.
Direct dialogue in real-time adds invaluable nuance, opportunities for clarification, and space for empathy missing from asynchronous digital messages. Use this technique liberally at the first signs of spiraling misunderstandings.
This is not only more productive from a work perspective but also saves you from endless overthinking and overanalyzing due to the sensitive nature of such discussions, ultimately manifesting into email anxiety.
#5 Schedule Sends to Delay Replies
Rather than instantly hitting send on non-urgent replies and then restlessly awaiting responses, leverage delay sends features to lift pressure at the moment. Build healthy psychological distance by scheduling sends at minimum a few hours later or even the next morning.
Granting yourself grace rather than demanding an immediate answer helps maintain the perspective that every single email hitting your inbox truly doesn’t require a prompt reaction.
Final Note
At its best, email facilitates efficient logistics and planning. But at its worst, email chains chronically disrupt focus, increase miscommunications, and fuel anxiety by blurring unhealthily the boundaries between urgent deadlines and reasonable human limits.
Counteract such dysfunctional patterns by remembering that behind every inbox lies a fellow human like yourself – imperfect in knowledge but worthy of grace and patience. With a few thoughtful tweaks to daily habits, you can conquer anxiety and send freely without needless worry.