Learning a new way to do something – like managing e-mail – necessarily requires changes in behavior. Though self-evident, the difficulty of successfully making those changes in behavior is routinely underestimated.
For example, we all know that managing our e-mail better will lower our stress level and increase our productivity. These are terrific reasons to make the necessary changes. We may even make a conscious decision to better manage our e-mail by adopting a new system. Yet, we always experience internal resistance when the new behaviors required to make the change are introduced. In fact, the resistance is often so great that it significantly diminishes the result, if not undermine the effort altogether.
In short, change is hard. End of story, right? Maybe not.
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