100 CEOs and top execs told us their email hacks — here are the top 7
· Business Insider
Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI
- We analyzed 100 Power Hours interviews to find the email habits CEOs and founders use to stay focused.
- Most of them use time blocks, short replies, AI tools, delegation, and firm after-hours cutoffs.
- Mark Cuban, who receives hundreds of emails a day, doesn't avoid email — he makes it work for him.
Email is a necessary part of most workdays, but for a busy CEO or founder, it can also become a major distraction.
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That's a theme we've heard repeatedly in interviews for Power Hours, Business Insider's series about how CEOs, founders, investors, and public figures spend their days.
Some of the people we've talked to wake up to hundreds of messages and tackle them right away. Others avoid email for part of the day or have systems to decide what actually needs their attention. A few, like John Paul DeJoria, don't even have an email address.
We asked ChatGPT to analyze all 100 Power Hours interviews published as of this writing and identify the most useful strategies our sources use to manage their inboxes.
Here are seven email habits and rules that stood out.
1. They decide what needs to get done before opening their inbox
Carter Reum, the cofounder of venture-capital firm M13, writes down a few tactical tasks and one or two bigger priorities while drinking his morning coffee — all before opening his inbox.
Reum said that once he starts reading email, he's reacting to what everyone else wants from him. It's why he follows a rule he learned years ago: "Don't let your inbox be your to-do list." Once he does get to email, Reum uses Superhuman and starts with messages flagged as important.
Claudia Romo Edelman, the founder of Sotol Romo, also thinks about her priorities before getting into email or meetings. She identifies what she calls her "big rocks," or the most important things she needs to accomplish that day.
Former Netflix CMO Bozoma Saint John wakes up around 5:30 a.m. and spends up to an hour meditating, reading, or praying before looking at email or texts.
2. They give email a specific time slot in their day
Rebecca Minkoff used to check her email first thing in the morning. About three years ago, she stopped. Now, the fashion designer and entrepreneur builds 30-minute blocks into her schedule to read and respond to email.
Loren Castle, the CEO of Sweet Loren's, also groups email into specific parts of her day. She uses what she calls "calendar stacking," scheduling calls and email work back-to-back so she can move through them more efficiently.
Lyft CEO David Risher doesn't start his morning with email either. He eventually checks email and Slack for anything urgent, and he spends another 45 minutes on email after dinner.
The schedules are different, but the idea is similar: Email gets a place in the day rather than constant attention.
3. They keep replies short
Roland Busch, the CEO of Siemens, gets about 200 emails a day and tries to keep fewer than 100 sitting in his inbox. He said he responds quickly, and most of his replies are simply "OK" or "No." If he needs to send a longer response, he'll sometimes dictate it while walking through the office.
Kristin Patrick, the CMO of Marc Jacobs, uses what she calls a three-line rule. If an email response needs to be longer than three lines, she'd rather get on a quick call.
4. They automate or delegate parts of their inbox
Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki wrote AI scripts to help him screen his email. When he opens his laptop or phone, one of the scripts sends him a consolidated message with the most important information and a summary of what happened over the previous 24 hours.
For nearly 17 years, Naya CEO Hady Kfoury received a copy of every customer review that came through Yelp, Google, or customer support. He eventually handed that responsibility to someone he trusted, who now sends him a weekly report. That reduced the number of emails Kfoury receives by at least 150 a day.
And when Anders Kurtén, the CEO of Fraser Yachts, is traveling, he relies on his team to triage incoming emails and calls.
5. They set a stopping point at night
Bold Bean Co. CEO Amelia Christie-Miller uses an app called Opal to keep herself from checking email late at night. Opal locks her out of email, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other apps after 9:30 p.m. She said the switch to Opal was "game-changing."
For Forvr Mood founder Jackie Aina, the cutoff is earlier. After about 6 or 7 p.m., she stops answering emails and working on her phone.
Jessica Hoppe, the CEO of The World Residences, sometimes catches up on work while her kids sleep in on the weekends, but she marks those emails "for Monday," so employees know they aren't expected to respond immediately.
6. They know when email isn't the best option
For some leaders, managing email means using it less.
Kevin O'Leary doesn't do email anymore. The "Shark Tank" investor told Business Insider that he receives between 2,000 and 4,000 emails a day. After trying different ways to filter them, he decided not to spend his time managing the volume. People who really need him know to use messaging instead.
Wolfgang Puck also prefers more direct communication. His afternoons include calls with chefs and restaurant managers around the world because he doesn't like email and believes talking to someone gives him a better sense of what they're trying to communicate.
At Synthesia, CEO Victor Riparbelli said employees don't use email internally. The company communicates through Slack. For external communication, he splits his time between email and WhatsApp and said he prefers instant messaging when the relationship allows it.
7. Mark Cuban makes email work for him
Mark Cuban is at the other end of the spectrum. He receives around 700 emails a day and uses three phones — two Androids and an iPhone — to manage them. Most will get a response.
Cuban told Business Insider he'd rather receive 700 to 1,000 emails than spend his time in "long, boring meetings."
He has a system and said Gmail's suggested responses can handle about 10% to 20% of his messages with a tap. When they can't, people who email him know to expect short responses.
He also uses folders to stay organized and has used separate accounts when his email volume became too much for one account to handle. For Cuban, email isn't something he's trying to avoid. He likes that it's asynchronous and searchable.
His approach is different from most on this list, but the broader idea is the same: He has a system for email instead of letting email dictate how he spends his time.
Read the original article on Business Insider