How to manage mail without letting it manage itself?
Denis Duvauchelle, CEO and cofounder of Twoodo, wondered - why do we spend so much time checking mail and notifications from social networks, instant messengers and other applications? On his blog, Denis reflects on productive priorities and gives practical advice to those who are unable to cope with the desire to look into the Inbox.
Photo by Michael Coghlan .
Where did this strange craving for constant mail checking come from?
Psychology Today magazine offers its opinion on why we are constantly distracted by checking mail:
1. Communication
Most of the tasks we have to do are on our own. Of course, there are meetings and confkolls, but with a specific task, everyone usually understands personally at their workplace. If the task is complex and time-consuming, then the time intervals spent in conditional solitude can be quite long. Despite the fact that each of us is able to work autonomously and independently, from time to time we all need to communicate. Mail can provide us with communication in the office mode, but the problem is that the size of the “portions” of communication in a virtual environment is difficult to control. The temptation to communicate can be too strong, and only the most assiduous and purposeful can control it.
2. Breathing
Image Conor .
Mental labor is able to bore just like physical labor - especially if you have to solve a non-trivial, complex task that requires long thought and a creative approach in general. Just as our body asks for a short rest after carrying heavy loads, our psyche resorts to using e-mail or social networks to unload. This is our respite after after a half-kilometer mental swim.
3. Change of picture
If something does not work out, we tend to be distracted by other tasks until inspiration returns. This is especially true for tasks requiring a creative solution. Unfortunately, instead of switching between things worthy of our time, we are wasting valuable time on aimlessly checking mail.
A good way out of this situation is to conduct two tasks (projects) at the same time in order to switch productively when thoughts come to a standstill. Personally, I found that freelancing for another company, literally a few hours a week, allows me to keep a fresh look at how things are going on at my startup. And my own startup, I’ll tell you, always needs a fresh, unpolluted look of its founder.
4. Dependence on distractions
Distracted from the main task on various “important” occasions is an excellent occasion to feel extremely busy. Psychology Today reports that the habit of checking mail and often getting distracted by various little things is our way of feeling satisfied with solving small problems, in other words, maximizing your FAQ for a unit of time. Psychologically, it’s more interesting for us to spend an hour on a bunch of “important” things and mentally praise ourselves than to spend it racking our brains over a complex, large-scale problem.
It is not easy to cultivate discipline in oneself, and modern technologies, slipping us more and more convenient ways to distract ourselves out of business, only complicate this process. Constantly distracted, we spend less time on really useful things. In addition, we are becoming a little dumber, because we are wasting energy and time for nothing - instead of concentrating on a task, deeply understanding its essence and finding solutions, we are trying to remember what we were thinking about when we decided to get distracted by checking mail or pages on social networks.
Mail helps us spend time and attention on:
- on -demand mailings
- notifications
- invitations to "interesting" webinars and conferences
- updates of the services we are subscribed to
- non-priority requests and tasks.
Ask yourself - if your work does not concern life and death, is it really necessary to check mail more often than once an hour? Well, you can skip a profitable auction on eBay or something like that, but this is rather an exception to the rule. Discipline yourself, get accustomed to the mode of receiving information in order to maintain mental health and do more.
Erin Andersen has written an excellent article on how technology fights for our attention. Spending about a tenth of the working time checking mail or other notifications and not finding anything important there, we subconsciously, invisibly to ourselves, are upset and annoyed. At the same time, being in constant contact makes us feel important and necessary, even if a robot is writing to us or someone just included us in a newsletter.
On the other hand, conscious isolation from distractions can have the opposite psychological effect. Andersen quotes Linda Stone - perhaps it’s time to talk about “attention management,” not “time management.” It turns out that there is even a whole science of distracting things that studies the effects of regular and freelance events on employee productivity. And guilty in this context should be considered ... notifications!
In principle, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be in touch, up to date, and sometimes take breaks, adding variety to the work on a boring or difficult task. But the more we get involved in the events (most often not too important for us) of the virtual world, the faster real life passes by. Let's ask ourselves - a man struggling to upload photos and videos from a concert of his favorite band - do he really experience the moment with all his heart, enjoy it to the fullest?
Time is a valuable resource. Use it sparingly, efficiently and for good, and not to collect information without which the world - and you - can easily live.
How to become the Lord of Time Email:
1. Divide the time into portions
In an article for 99U, Cal Newport describes how he distributes working hours. He divides working time into half-hour “servings”, which he spends either on complex tasks or on small activities. That is, if you check mail, you will have to spend the next half hour on tasks of this kind before returning to the main one.
2. Spend a strictly limited time checking mail / notifications, for example, no more than five minutes per hour
This approach provides more flexibility and freedom than the option with half-hour intervals, but you need to remember that five minutes can easily turn into twenty. Again, you need to remember the discipline - so if we set aside ten minutes for testing, but actually spent twenty, we will have to skip the next test. In principle, the goal of this approach is to spend no more than ten minutes per hour, that is, in general, from eighty to ninety minutes a day to check mail and important notifications. Although, of course, it is not necessary to spend exactly ten minutes each time - for most of us, five is enough.
3. Check mail upon arrival at work and once in the middle of the day
The radical approach. We check and answer all letters strictly at 9 (10, 11 ...) in the morning, and then in the middle of the day, say, at 14:00. No matter how long it takes! Under no circumstances do we check mail between the indicated hours. Recipients can be informed by signature in the letter - they say, because of the high load, I reply to letters at such and such time periods. Arrange with colleagues to call you when time does not tolerate. Of course, if you have contacts that should not wait, create separate emergency notifications for them. But only for them!
4. Opt out of your email.
Say it’s impossible? I don’t think! ..
Based on the article “How to manage email and not let it manage you” by Denis Duvoshel for thenextweb.com.
Photo by Michael Coghlan .
Where did this strange craving for constant mail checking come from?
Psychology Today magazine offers its opinion on why we are constantly distracted by checking mail:
1. Communication
Most of the tasks we have to do are on our own. Of course, there are meetings and confkolls, but with a specific task, everyone usually understands personally at their workplace. If the task is complex and time-consuming, then the time intervals spent in conditional solitude can be quite long. Despite the fact that each of us is able to work autonomously and independently, from time to time we all need to communicate. Mail can provide us with communication in the office mode, but the problem is that the size of the “portions” of communication in a virtual environment is difficult to control. The temptation to communicate can be too strong, and only the most assiduous and purposeful can control it.
2. Breathing
Image Conor .
Mental labor is able to bore just like physical labor - especially if you have to solve a non-trivial, complex task that requires long thought and a creative approach in general. Just as our body asks for a short rest after carrying heavy loads, our psyche resorts to using e-mail or social networks to unload. This is our respite after after a half-kilometer mental swim.
3. Change of picture
If something does not work out, we tend to be distracted by other tasks until inspiration returns. This is especially true for tasks requiring a creative solution. Unfortunately, instead of switching between things worthy of our time, we are wasting valuable time on aimlessly checking mail.
A good way out of this situation is to conduct two tasks (projects) at the same time in order to switch productively when thoughts come to a standstill. Personally, I found that freelancing for another company, literally a few hours a week, allows me to keep a fresh look at how things are going on at my startup. And my own startup, I’ll tell you, always needs a fresh, unpolluted look of its founder.
4. Dependence on distractions
Distracted from the main task on various “important” occasions is an excellent occasion to feel extremely busy. Psychology Today reports that the habit of checking mail and often getting distracted by various little things is our way of feeling satisfied with solving small problems, in other words, maximizing your FAQ for a unit of time. Psychologically, it’s more interesting for us to spend an hour on a bunch of “important” things and mentally praise ourselves than to spend it racking our brains over a complex, large-scale problem.
It is not easy to cultivate discipline in oneself, and modern technologies, slipping us more and more convenient ways to distract ourselves out of business, only complicate this process. Constantly distracted, we spend less time on really useful things. In addition, we are becoming a little dumber, because we are wasting energy and time for nothing - instead of concentrating on a task, deeply understanding its essence and finding solutions, we are trying to remember what we were thinking about when we decided to get distracted by checking mail or pages on social networks.
Mail helps us spend time and attention on:
- on -demand mailings
- notifications
- invitations to "interesting" webinars and conferences
- updates of the services we are subscribed to
- non-priority requests and tasks.
Ask yourself - if your work does not concern life and death, is it really necessary to check mail more often than once an hour? Well, you can skip a profitable auction on eBay or something like that, but this is rather an exception to the rule. Discipline yourself, get accustomed to the mode of receiving information in order to maintain mental health and do more.
Erin Andersen has written an excellent article on how technology fights for our attention. Spending about a tenth of the working time checking mail or other notifications and not finding anything important there, we subconsciously, invisibly to ourselves, are upset and annoyed. At the same time, being in constant contact makes us feel important and necessary, even if a robot is writing to us or someone just included us in a newsletter.
On the other hand, conscious isolation from distractions can have the opposite psychological effect. Andersen quotes Linda Stone - perhaps it’s time to talk about “attention management,” not “time management.” It turns out that there is even a whole science of distracting things that studies the effects of regular and freelance events on employee productivity. And guilty in this context should be considered ... notifications!
In principle, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be in touch, up to date, and sometimes take breaks, adding variety to the work on a boring or difficult task. But the more we get involved in the events (most often not too important for us) of the virtual world, the faster real life passes by. Let's ask ourselves - a man struggling to upload photos and videos from a concert of his favorite band - do he really experience the moment with all his heart, enjoy it to the fullest?
Time is a valuable resource. Use it sparingly, efficiently and for good, and not to collect information without which the world - and you - can easily live.
How to become the Lord of Time Email:
1. Divide the time into portions
In an article for 99U, Cal Newport describes how he distributes working hours. He divides working time into half-hour “servings”, which he spends either on complex tasks or on small activities. That is, if you check mail, you will have to spend the next half hour on tasks of this kind before returning to the main one.
2. Spend a strictly limited time checking mail / notifications, for example, no more than five minutes per hour
This approach provides more flexibility and freedom than the option with half-hour intervals, but you need to remember that five minutes can easily turn into twenty. Again, you need to remember the discipline - so if we set aside ten minutes for testing, but actually spent twenty, we will have to skip the next test. In principle, the goal of this approach is to spend no more than ten minutes per hour, that is, in general, from eighty to ninety minutes a day to check mail and important notifications. Although, of course, it is not necessary to spend exactly ten minutes each time - for most of us, five is enough.
3. Check mail upon arrival at work and once in the middle of the day
The radical approach. We check and answer all letters strictly at 9 (10, 11 ...) in the morning, and then in the middle of the day, say, at 14:00. No matter how long it takes! Under no circumstances do we check mail between the indicated hours. Recipients can be informed by signature in the letter - they say, because of the high load, I reply to letters at such and such time periods. Arrange with colleagues to call you when time does not tolerate. Of course, if you have contacts that should not wait, create separate emergency notifications for them. But only for them!
4. Opt out of your email.
Say it’s impossible? I don’t think! ..
Based on the article “How to manage email and not let it manage you” by Denis Duvoshel for thenextweb.com.