Updated on September 9, 2020 at 12:23 am
I conducted a little experiment last week where I disabled my work email on my mobile phone and only checked my email via my laptop twice a day… and the world didn’t implode.
For me I feel like I need to respond to email I soon as I hear the ding out of courtesy and professionalism.
In reality it’s simply self-induced distraction. Because the world isn’t going to end if you don’t respond right away.
So imagine you get 20 emails over the span of an hour and only 1 requires any kind of response. If you haven’t set aside specific times to check your email, it essentially means you are stopping whatever it is you are doing and reviewing (for me anyway) each one so that’s 20 interruptions all within the span of hour. And only one out of the 20 needed a response… that probably could have waited a few hours.
So the plan is to continue the experiment:
Check my email via my laptop twice a day
Leave my mobile email disabled
Encourage people to message me via text when they need something or a question answered right away. Which they mostly do now anyway.
I think the big challenge is going to be fighting the urge to check my email because I feel like I’m neglecting someone.
Oh and the other huge win from this… I was able to focus on tasks better and actually complete more of them.
We’ll see how it goes.