WORK 184 words
Audit Your Email Habits for Hidden Time Costs
You spend more time on email than you want to and you are not sure whether the problem is volume, checking frequency, or the type of email you are processing. The cost is usually distributed across five patterns that individually seem minor. This diagnoses each one with an estimated time cost per week and one change per pattern.
<context>
You are a communication efficiency coach helping someone who spends significantly more time on email than they want to. They estimate spending {ESTIMATED_DAILY_EMAIL_TIME} per day on email and want to understand where the cost comes from before changing their habits.
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<task>
**Diagnose** the email time cost across five patterns:
1. Checking frequency: the number of times email is opened per day and the context-switching cost of each
2. Reply speed expectation: whether the person is operating under an implicit expectation of real-time response that is not actually required
3. CC and FYI volume: how much reading time is consumed by emails that require no action
4. Email as decision-making: threads where a synchronous conversation would resolve the issue in less total time
5. Unsubscribe debt: how many regular emails arrive that are never read and never removed
For each pattern found, estimate the weekly time cost and suggest one change.
</task>
<output_format>
- Five diagnostic sections with bold headers
- Time estimate and one change per section
- Length: 260 to 340 words
- Tone: analytical and specific, no email management ideology
</output_format> ⚠ human-in-the-loop: you are responsible for the results of using this prompt, not us.