Comments on: How I Busted My Email Addiction

By: Marsha Egan

Marsha Egan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:48:33 +0000

Is so glad hear a success story! I like the way the statistics motivated your change, and also the way you gradually shifted to checking only four times a day.

I think all of us have been away from our desks or in meetings for over an hour, and the sky did not fall in because we weren’t there to check our e-mail incessantly.

If everyone would stop using e-mail urgently, I think we could all collectively take better control of our work.

Congrats!

By: JC

JC — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:16:41 +0000

My problem is that I have google chat open and most of the time I’m just on there talking to people =(

By: fathersez

fathersez — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:37:52 +0000

Even if you checked once a day, it still looks like an awful lot of mails to clear.

And perhaps the real issue we should watch out for is internet addiction, not just email.

Regards

By: Customized Marketing

Customized Marketing — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:07:49 +0000

Here’s the video:
http://www.43folders.com/2007/07/25/merlins-inbox-zero-talk

By: Customized Marketing

Customized Marketing — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:07:20 +0000

Email addict here. This video by Merlin Mann would be very helpful to those who talked about organization of emails.

By: Rap Music

Rap Music — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:05:10 +0000

Wow I can really relate to firing up the email (or in my case checking my blackberry) just waiting for it to tell me my next step. Setting daily goals is a great strategy. However, in my case, I think I’m gonna start using your time-logging suggestion for my blackberry usage lol. What a habit. I know that by reducing how many times I check it on a daily basis, I will clear up some good quality time.

Thanks for your story, and offering advice to all of us!

By: Steve @ pfstartup

Steve @ pfstartup — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:58:16 +0000

I absolutely applaud you for cutting back on your bad habit of checking email frequently. I’m currently reading Timothy Ferriss’ “4-hour workweek” and he recommends exactly what you’re doing, setting defined times when you are allowed to check your mail. I find this helps for more than just email, like checking espn for breaking news or slickdeals for the latest deals.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:04:51 +0000

Just tracking it will open your eyes as to how often you do it and how long you spend on things. Even if you do it for just one day, it’ll be useful. Try it out!

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:02:51 +0000

Yeah, I found that turning that off helped me tremendously because email stopped interrupting ME… if I was engrossed in work, I wouldn’t think to check email and it had no opportunity to interrupt my work.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:05:37 +0000

I am a culprit of checking my email too often and need to start writing a time log as well. I do agree that along with checking email, just looking at other things online do cut into my productivity and I need to cut back on those.

By: thomas

thomas — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:52:49 +0000

Yeah, I check email way too much. Of course, I’d get a manager pop in every time I didn’t respond in 2 minutes.

By: Llama Money

Llama Money — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:33:10 +0000

I have all my email pushed to my phone ( gotta live IMAP IDLE ).. so while I don’t technically ever check it…. I get emails constantly. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s the most efficient way to do things, or the very least efficient way. Maybe I should try turning off the instant updates for a couple days to see if my productivity improves or not.

By: Charles @ StewardshipJourney

Charles @ StewardshipJourney — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:05:05 +0000

My downfall is Outlook. I love that you get immediate alerts when you get a new message, but it causes that immediate distraction as well. I could be totally into a project or task, and then all of a sudden, “hey, what’s Michael have to say?” Curse you email, you necessary evil!

By: Ashley @ Wide Open Wallet

Ashley @ Wide Open Wallet — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:22:57 +0000

Guilty! Today for some reason my laptop isn’t accessing gmail and I’ve actually had to go upstairs and check my email on the desktop. Oh the exercise I’m getting!

I really should put it on a schedule.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:00:57 +0000

I’m down to checking about 5 times a day, before it was constant.
Maybe I should of gone for help up the road – I live near Loughborough University