Argh I can't do it, I'm addicted to email

[Livingit]

I check my email every 5 minutes, trying to do this once or twice a day thing is a nightmare. How do you guys get off the addiction?

Living this 80/20 thing is way harder then it seems.

[Sven]

Gosh... If only you could! The time you'd save would be huge!

I recently lost my internet connection at my office and still haven't reconnected it. Do my internet related work at home, then go to the office at 11.

Trash the blackberry. Shut down the laptop instead of keeping it on standby.

But if you are adicted (and i do mean adicted in it's true meaning) it will be a hard habit to give up... Harsh methods may be called for!

Good luck.

[dking]

The first step is admitting that you have a problem.

Ok, as of right now your email no longer functions. What do you do?

[Vagabond]

You don't have to go from every 5 minutes to twice a day in one shot. first go to 2 times and hour then once and hour and gradually scale back.

It's definitely very hard, I went on a snowboarding weekend a couple months ago and the condo had free wi-fi. It was really hard to not take it with me and i rationalized it for like 10 minutes..."ill just check it real quick in the morning... what if...?"

I ended up not taking it and it was great. Didnt have anything to check and truly relaxed and disconnected myself and it was more fun because of it.

Also, realize that its not that you "Can't" do it... you're choosing not to do it.

[Lucius]

it gets easier - I was the same way...2 weeks ago - now it's more like 6x a day - shooting for 2X (AM/PM) in the next couple weeks --- I didn't get to that point overnight so I can't expect to get away from it that quickly.

TV for example - I used to watch 3-4 hours per night --- now, maybe 4 hours per week, save for an occaisional sporting event. don't miss it AT ALL.

same for news & weather --- none of which I have any control over & neither really has a major impact on my life - browse CNN online 1X per day for 5 min.; weather? it's gonna do what it's gonna do...

getting so much more done w/ so much less "rushing around" - feels good.

baby steps. just try it. nothing much is really that important, is it?

[final_id]

Suggestions:

1. Set up Outlook (if that, indeed, is your emailer program) to not automatically get messages from the Outlook Server, but instead to only go fetch them when you manually hit the send-receive button.

2. Write down all occasions when you hit the send-receive button. Just keep a little notepad by the computer and every time you poke that little thingie, write down the day and time.

3. Respond to emails only if they're older than one day (then two; then four; etc.). In other words, get them coming IN at a regular clip, but let them rest there in the in-box for a while. In fact, you'll find yourself more productive about the response because it has germinated in your head a little bit, so you're able to write what you want to say more quickly and directly and clearly and git-'er-done. And you'll likely offend fewer people.

4. Learn to use the "draft" feature on Outlook. This is the place where saved, but not-sent, emails rest until you send them along. (It's different from the outbox. That's where going-on-their-way-out-the-door emails sit until you hit the send-receive button. You can move things between draft and outbox and vice versa just by dragging.) By putting outgoing emails into the draft folder rather than the outbox, you can give yourself the minor addicted pleasure of writing something immediately (naughty!), but then not actually implementing it. Leave them sitting in "drafts" for a day or so, before delivering them to outbox and then to recipient. Eventually you'll learn that things which aren't implemented immediately don't blow up.

[Krayzi]

Just stop checking your email every 5 minutes. :)

First, the technical aspects (do these first) -- turn off all automatic notifications, sounds, popups, etc. Only learn about new mail when YOU choose to.

But the technical solution is only 10% of it. When it comes down to it, it's pretty hard to just NOT do something; you need to make sure you have something else in its place. Have a clear purpose for every 15 minute period in your day.

If you plod along aimlessly and feel that what you are working on RIGHT NOW isn't 100% the best thing you can be doing with your time, "checking email" can easily bubble to the top and send you scanning your Inbox for something that could be more important.

Note that the actual factor with power here is the *perception*, not the actuality of something being more/less important.

So there is a lot of merit as well to implementing the 80/20 principle and eliminating all of the cruft that you really don't need to be doing. Plan out your time in advance and make sure you'll so busy and focused and engrossed in important work that checking email is _actually_ a waste of time, and you'll be much less likely to do degrade into that pattern.

[Crickwat]

Try checking your mails once a day. Keep yourself busy with other activities. Spend some time outside, you can indulge in sports or just have a walk enjoying the nature. You can tell yourself that most of the mails are not that important and can be checked later. :)

[timeforlife]

I recommend trying out RescueTime.com. It comes with a little download program that tracks where you spend your time. I started using it this week and it tells me I spent 2 hours total in my email program and 17 hours coding (I currently program web applications for a living). Not too bad of a ratio, but I think I can do better next week.

Also, I started a new habit. I clear out my inbox completely every day. It's really refreshing and helps me realize the important YAGNI prinicple, You Ain't Gonna Need It.

I'm also tracking my time on this site, thinking that if I spend as much time as I used to in email, learning how to become an entreprenuer, then I might not need that email program quite as much.

[webgal]

Slowly wean yourself.

[tadk]

I check my email every 5 minutes, trying to do this once or twice a day thing is a nightmare. How do you guys get off the addiction?

Living this 80/20 thing is way harder then it seems.

In one week, my first, I got down to 4 times a day on the work one.

I think I can make it to 3 times a day due to how work actually is.
Next task to limit each time to under 30 minutes. So far almost there already.

[tbone2345]

i used to have a similar problem but finally worked out my problem was with my focus, not specifically with my email checking addiction

I realised my caffeine consumption was through the roof, was throwing out my focus and one of the symptoms was constant wheel spinning busy work like email checking

Maybe you should take a step back and ask yourself what why specifically you're checking your email.......find the motivation behind you're addiction and tackle that instead!

/my 2 cents

[lovinglife]

Are you getting emails everytime you check and, if so, what kind? Over time, I have signed up for a lot of newsletters, groups, etc. Quite a few of them were because they sounded like something I would be interested in but ended up either not reading/following through or only read them when I wanted a diversion. If you do that, take a hard look at the stuff coming through and ask yourself if they really do contain information that you are immediately acting upon. If not, unsubscribe (I add the original website to my favorites so I could find them again if I truly ever had a need for them in the future). I've been doing a lot of unsubscribing and my mail count has dropped dramatically. I have both personal and business emails that I have done this with.

Also, are you checking emails as a form of diversion from projects? I'm very guilty of that. I've set up a system so that, on most days, my daily tasks can be done first thing and without taking too long (I admit I check email after each batch is completed as a reward). But basically, once my work is done for the most part and there are no emails coming through every few minutes, it's kind of boring staring at the email box and I find it easier to walk away and do something productive.

[final_id]

Once a day. To me, that's a major plateau.

I had no problem going from "all the time" to once an hour, to four times a day, to twice a day, to once a day. All of those were just, "I was in a meeting and didn't get your message until just now" types of excuses.

But jumping from once a day to ANY lower amount seems unforgivable in my current work context. People email on the presumption that the contact will be responded to by the end of the work-day. The current American assumption about business is, that everyone's "last thing" at work, for the final half-hour, is to look through the email in-box and deal with all items that have content which requires response today.

I know, that's what OTHER people expect of me. But at some level, I don't have the authority to tell them not to expect that. I have a job and a set of job requirements set by other people, and part of that job is, by definition, interacting with others, and those other humans have expectations of me. Whether or not those expectations are legitimate is ENTIRELY beside the point, because THEY HAVE POWER OVER ME to determine (at least some of) my actions. They have an expectation that I should act in a certain way, and that if I don't, then I'm not fulfilling the duties of my job.

Ideally, I'd just say, change jobs. Get one where you're not laden with those typical social expectations. But umm ... they don't grow on trees. I'm happy to have the one I DO have.

[Dantplayer]

About e-mail,

I did an internship in accounting this past summer. They put me in documentation which meant tons of e-mails and paper flying around.

The way my cycle works, I am the most productive from 7:00am-11:00. Keeping that in mind, I found that I was most productive time at work was as early as I could arrive (7:30) until about 10:00.

After that, everything was a haze, which is why I reserved checking e-mail and walking around the office (looking important!) for then.

I don't think fighting the e-mail habit can be done without finding something to replace it. Don't open Lotus notes!! Instead do the work that MUST be done that day when you are the most productive.

[JKohlbach]

I also found it pretty hard.

The work email I check twice a day currently at 10:30am and 3pm. I sometimes regress and check it during the day as I've always got Outlook open so I get my meeting notifications (all other notifications, sounds, beeps and popups are off). It was hard to get used to for the first week, but once i'd let everyone know the expectations of me and how i use my work email it was fine. People now know not to expect an answer unless it's one of those times. Interestingly this didn't really spike the amount of face to face visits either which is the opposite of what i was expecting.

The personal email I read whenever a message comes in (i know, bad! *smacks wrist*). But at least I've setup gmail notifier so that I don't have to go off and check it constantly.

I never check email at home unless it's muse related. :eek:

[Dantplayer]

I have some friends who have a pop-up on their screen every time they get an e-mail....do you have any idea what it's like working WITH these people? It's madness!

[sadu]

I'm freshly weaned from checking every 5 minutes, and are currently on 3 times a day, planning to drop to twice a day in the near future.

My email signature now has the following links in it...

http://www.ragepank.com/email/
http://www.ragepank.com/im/

So far, it's working great. I won't be apologising for missing any email, because I have provided a solid mechanism for people to get their important email through if they really needed to (they just include the word 'important' in the subject line and my software sends me a SMS).

The emotional difference this makes is massive - I can now quite happily ignore my email knowing that there is nothing of critical importance in there - if there was something critical, the client would have marked it 'important'. If they didn't mark it 'important' and I didn't deal with it quickly, then I can say "Well, if you had marked it as 'important' I would have been able to attend to it, just like it says here...".

The SMS alerts do go against the principles of total freedom, but it works really well as a soft introduction. Using this system, I have had no trouble with 3 times a day email, and are loving the time it's freed up.

I have also been using Tim's "don't check email until you have completed the most important task" rule, which is also working brilliantly. You get to lunchtime, have got something important signed off and out the door, and are basically in cruise mode for the rest of the day. Everything else is easy once you get the important stuff done. Loving it.

[jackson]

Is there a reason why you're not supposed to check it first thing in the morning? I have that problem at home.

[sadu]

First up, identify your reasons for checking so often. Are you worried about missing something important? Are you using it as an excuse to put off doing unpleasant work? Something else? Identify the problem, then find a workaround so you don't have to check the email so regularly.

As others have said, you can't just go from every 5 mins to twice a day in one jump because people expect a quicker answer than that. You need to 'train' clients / suppliers / colleagues so they understand your work pattern and can accommodate, otherwise you might be seen as being unprofessional. Training means that you tell them what you are doing (Tim's autoresponder, or include the information in your email signature). Others have suggested leaving the responses for a while so people don't expect answers in 5 minutes like they have grown accustomed to. It will take a few weeks to change people's expectations.

If you are expecting urgent email that simply can't wait up to 12 hours to be dealt with, put in place alternative systems to handle this. I setup a script which sends me a SMS if the subject line of an email has 'urgent', 'asap', 'critical', or 'important' in it. Clients know to do this if they really need a quick answer, so I can now check email 2-3 times a day and never miss anything important.

I also use filters extensively, which saves a bundle of time. Automate as much of the sorting as possible, and find ways to get rid of unimportant crap from your inbox (facebook status updates, monthly newsletters, etc). I'm looking at getting an outsourcer to check my email half an hour before I do, to manually remove / filter the spam and rubbish that my automatic filters didn't manage to get. That way there is less chance of being sidetracked when checking email.

[mikephx]

Contrary to the popular conception, since getting a Blackberry last summer, my time online has drastically decreased; I'm even a heavy business traveler. I believe the reasons for this are:

1) I get my email directly to my phone. I realized most of the messages I get are junk or unimportant, and can just be deleted on the spot.

2) I can reply via phone to the message, or when I do login, I have a targeted plan of attack of what needs to be done.

3) Since I hate tapping out long messages on the phone, responses became shorter and to the point.

Before the Blackberry, I would check email several times daily, just to see if there were messages. This would often lead to hours of random surfing and time-wasting. Also, strangely enough, I discovered that the less I was online, the less I missed it. I realized the Earth traveled around the Sun just the same as before the web. Ha ha!

I just wanted to jump in and, hopefully, add some relevant insight.
-Mike

[final_id]

My Blackberry has led me to a similar freedom. Previous to owning a Blackberry, I had to log in and turn on and check thoroughly all my email accounts one by one, some with web access through an Outlook server, some with Outlook direct access, some with HTML internet web access, etc. etc.. Now, since all my email addresses twitter and tweet to my Blackberry, I get a copy of the message to my cell phone. And I look at it. And I know that there is no reason to bother with it until later. In general, in fact, I just delete it.

So, the Blackberry allows me to "get a beeper page" every time I have an incoming email, and therefore, I know when the few occasions do arise, that would require me to log into an email account and actually deal with something. Previously, I had to LOOK at emails in order to know whether or not I had to DEAL with emails. Now, I know whether or not I need to DEAL with one or another, before I ever officially LOOK at them.

[DeyIrfan]

hmmmm my best advice is to email Dr.Phil about your problem. Maybe he can help you

just kidding:D:D:D