How to Use the Email and Message Processing Calculator
Checking every notification the moment it arrives feels efficient, but stopping what you're doing and refocusing afterward costs more time than most people realize. This calculator takes how many times a day you check email or chat apps and how long each check takes, calculates your current yearly time cost, and shows how much you'd save by batching those checks into fewer sessions.
The savings estimate isn't just about processing time — it accounts for the refocus cost of switching back to what you were doing each time you check (assumed at about 2 minutes). Cutting 20 checks a day down to 3 eliminates 17 refocus costs every single day. Multiplied across 365 days, that adds up to a meaningful chunk of time each year.
Not every message can wait for a batch, but non-urgent email and group chats are usually fine to check only at set times — say, morning, after lunch, and before you log off. Turning off notifications outside those windows is the easiest way to actually realize the savings this calculator shows you, rather than just knowing the number.
Frequently Asked Questions
We multiply how many times a day you check by the average time per check, then multiply by 365 days to get the yearly total.
Reducing how often you check also reduces the refocus cost (about 2 minutes) each time you switch back to a task. We convert the eliminated checks into a yearly time savings.
It depends on your role, but grouping checks into about 3 sessions a day — morning, after lunch, and before you log off — is a commonly recommended starting point.