I recently made some adjustments to my working habits and I would like you to take the steps below. I’d like us to shift our habits away from the constant distractions which constantly take us out of focus. I’d like all of us to change gears and work more project-based instead of chaotically getting back to messages and emails as fast as possible. This leads to unfocused work habits.
Most of us constantly look at our emails or even have our Gmail up on one screen all day constantly watching if emails come in. I’d like everyone to realize that emails do not need to be immediately responded to or even read. I have started checking my email in between projects OR taking a break from a project. I like to work on projects for 45 minutes to 2 hours straight before looking at messages or emails. I’d like everyone to read the snippet I took from an article, which I have pasted below, and give me your feedback and thoughts.
To help facilitate this, I have recently turned off chrome notifications. You can easily do this by going to the following link. Keep in mind, your messages will also not show a pop-up on the bottom right, which is a good thing. You will still see notifications for messages when you are in gmail.
chrome://settings/content/notifications?search=notifications
Please see this snipped from lifehack.org.
3. Email Consumption
According to Tim Ferriss, we need to:
“limit email consumption and production. This is the greatest single interruption in the modern world.”
We all know how distracting e-mail can be.
In a typical day how many emails do you receive and send?
Does this sound familiar?
You are working on an important project and you get a notification that you have received an e-mail message.
Now you have two choices.
You can stop what you’re doing and break your focus and read the email, or, you can stay on task and look at the email later.
Many people go through their whole day like this. They are fully engaged on working on something important and then an email notification pops up.
You stop what you’re doing, switch to your inbox, and read the email, oftentimes an email that is completely irrelevant and contributes nothing to your current priorities.
These emails can create a constant feeling of busyness and will often result in unfinished projects at the end of the day.
This in turn, can create a feeling that we haven’t actually really had a productive day.
How to Stay Focused and Lessen the Distraction
Time blocking
Set aside a specific amount of uninterrupted time to work on a project or task. Commit to not looking at emails (or answering phone calls) during this period of time.
Based on Tim’s advice, I have resolved to check e-mail only twice a day. It is already having an enormous impact. Here’s what I suggest:
Work in offline mode
Set your computer or laptop to offline mode, and let the email messages accumulate in your inbox until you’re ready to answer them.
Rather than viewing and answering emails one by one, let them accumulate and then set aside focused time to process and respond to the emails.
Batch email responding will take less time than answering them one by one, and it allows you to stay focused on the project at hand without being distracted.
Check e-mail at certain times each day
This method has been introduced by a number of my entrepreneurial coaching clients and it has helped them free up time and stay more focused.
Your work circumstances will be different, so it’s important to find a process that works for you and other members of your team.
One method is to have two specific times a day to check your emails, another maybe three times a day – morning, lunchtime and in the hour before you leave to ensure you are all caught up.
If you decide to implement this technique it would be wise to create an out of office message.
Don’t check e-mail first thing
This technique may be difficult to implement depending on your circumstances, but if you can, you will be way more productive. Here’s why.
Rather than checking email first thing, instead spend this precious time when you are more energized and focused working on your one or two biggest priorities for the day.
