Dr. Ed Tori argues that checking email constantly enslaves you to other people's priorities and kills deep work. He waits until 10:30 AM to check his, recommends picking one time a day, and says you need to tell colleagues about the boundary so they stop expecting instant replies.
Hey, this is Dr. Tory with ProductivityPearls.com this one's going to sound super obvious, this tip for today. And it is, but you actually have to do it. That's the issue. So today's tip is all about your email. If you are constantly in your email, quickly replying, constantly checking to see if somebody replied, and then you reply quickly afterwards if you are doing that sort of stuff, if you are in your email 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 times in an hour, then you are not doing your best work, period. You are not doing your best work. And you might say, yeah, but this is something I have to do. This is the way my work works, the way it works in this organization. Or we have to do the email. This is how people know I'm contributing ideas to the, to the project or whatever. And email is how we all communicate. I'll tell you what, you are not doing good work. You are enslaved by your email. If you are checking it six, seven, eight times in an hour, and at some point it becomes so subconscious that you don't even realize you're doing it. And that is a huge problem. So your tip for today is break the shackles of email by scheduling the time that you check your email. Now, I also don't recommend that it is something that you schedule early. Now, our tendency is to get up and check email. You wake up in the morning, check your email, you walk into the office, check your email, I would recommend avoiding that entirely because the fact is that's other people's work for you and that means you're not setting your agenda for your day. So I would recommend scheduling a time that you check your email and being disciplined about that. So for me, I actually don't check my email until 10:30 in the morning. Before that time, that's my time to get my work done. And if somebody has to reach me through email, well, that's not the best way to reach me. And what happens is over time, people learn that. People learn that, oh, well, he doesn't really reply to his email early in the morning. So I better call him, I better text him, I better page him, whatever. So schedule the time that you look at your email. And if it happens to be that the culture at your place of employment or with your friends or whatever is that of constantly being on email or constantly being on text, change it. You are in control. And you might say, no, my boss, blah, blah, blah. You know what? You know how many times I've had this conversation where I go to someone and I say, Look, I'm sorry for not replying to your email, but if I don't have that focus time in the morning, then I can't best serve you with whatever it is that we're working on together. I can serve you better if I'm not checking email all the time. Because there are emails that you get that are junk, right? You don't need them. There are emails that you get that are like, thanks. There are emails that you get that send your head off in a whole new direction that you don't need. You start thinking about other things. Sometimes you get an email and your mood changes, and then your mood. Then that makes you less productive, right? Or makes you think about other things. Change your mood. Change the way you walk into a meeting. You were upbeat before. Now you got this email, you saw it, and then you go walk into the meeting and it changes your entire demeanor. Don't let that happen. That's slavery. That's what that is. So stop. Change the time that you check your email. Set a time, whatever that time that is, after a period of you getting some stuff done in the morning, and then check your email. Okay. And let people know that's what you do. I'm sorry, I don't check my email until 10:30. And they'll get it over time. They'll get it over time. They'll appreciate it. And in fact, you'll get comments like, I get all the time. Oh, man, I wish I could do that. I wish I. Yeah, I was like, you can. You know, I didn't think I could either, but then once I started doing it, after hearing from some of my mentors that this is a good way to go, once I started implementing it, wow, the whole thing changes. Everything changes. Stop being enslaved by your email. Schedule the time that you check it. Check it on your terms and choose the ones you check. This is Dr. Tory from ProductivityPearls.com Go implement this right now. Pick a time that you're going to start checking your email, but don't check it before that time.
