How to avoid e-mail procrastination?
Why speak about e-mails?
Because the little icon on the bottom right corner of your screen can be a killer for deep work! And deep work is what we need, when we want to get things done.
When we get an e-mail, I think this is what happens:
- Disruption: We are disrupted and our thinking shifts from our actual task or plan to the content of the e-mail. And we choose neither content nor timing.
- Associations: The content, the sender – within milliseconds all that creates hundreds of images, words, and feelings that we now have to deal with.
- Action: Our mind ends up doing something we don’t want it to, because our actual task should have priority – not always but most of the time!
So, what to do about all that?
Here my learnings:
- Switch off auto-notification
- Don’t start your day with checking your e-mail. Start your day with what you think is the most important thing of each particular day
- Only open e-mails intentionally
- Batch your e-mail time
- Unsubscribe from any newsletters you don’t actually read
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