How to Unhook from Your Inbox in 7 Easy (And Only Slightly Painful) Steps
Updated August 11, 2010 Have an email problem? You're not alone - and today, with Gmail's announcement of new features I wanted to update this post to add I'm using some new tools.
The Super Clean Gmail Chrome Extension is the ultimate minimalist inbox design.
If you're tired of getting lost in the email woods, try Gmail Addict. It allows you to set an intention and time limit before entering the forest that is your inbox.
Good for quick tasks, and coupled with Email this Page, you can almost completely stay out of your inbox.
One of my resolutions for 2010 is to practice eliminating.
Coffee was the first to go at the end of last year. (Mercy, yes. I did sneak in a few shots of coffee - not espresso - in Costa Rica. When I asked for whole leaf tea it was like I'd sprouted a hairy mole where my third eye should go. Note: brushed teeth before and after for those who care - and you should. Cavities...). Then it was on to addressing the Twitter addiction. I'm working on sugar (slow going) and for the past week and a half, I've been almost completely off email. Eliminating the email urge is challenging. Nay, crazymaking.
After a week and a half of practicing, I'm down to checking email once a day. There were three days of withdrawal during which I didn't leave the house and I functioned only partially. Can't lie, it was rough. And I am so thrilled to be on the other side, with no intention of going back.
Here's how:
1. First, resolve to do it. Resolve to unhook yourself from your inbox.
2. Remind self why. You don't love living in your inbox, right? For me, it's a place I go and instantly get lost - it's a forest of questions and requests mixed in with deeply touching stories and anecdotes and kind words from friends and strangers. But it is not a productive place. And believe me, I've tried every hack known and it's still not a productivity hub.
3. Give yourself a visual reminder. Mine is the PDF/Pages template below, which I keep on the fridge. I gave myself a visual reminder that I'm to check only at 2PM once a day.
4. Give yourself alternatives. In the visual, I put myself looking happy! and productive!. (Include a list of 10 - 20 other things you could be doing instead.)
5. Compose only? I decided that composing (using this hacklet from hackaddict) emails is okay. But I can only check and respond once a day.
6. Respond to done. When you do open your inbox, completely process it.
7. Make sure you've got a support network. And they know you're only checking once a day. And they don't say, "hey, I was just reading this email when..." and, "did you get the email I just sent you?" a hundred times an hour. This is a crucial step.
Good luck. It's not easy. But it's ten levels of "worth it."
Oh, and. Final word of advice: I don't recommend giving up sugar at the same time. (Something's got to give. For me, email can wait. Dark chocolate* bars cannot.)
Use this template (Pages) to create your own "no email except ___" or whatever you decide. Bonus: you'll get to see what I work on when I'm not checking mine. Or check out the PDF.
Are You Ready to Reach Sickening Heights of Mind-Blowing Productivity?! Well I Sure Hope So!
(Anyway, you get my point. Also, resolve to check in the afternoon, not the morning. Set your goals and journal in the morning. Don't hook up to the inbox first thing.)
-
See also:
Leo at Zen Habits (thank you for getting me thinking on these things)
*with chunks of raspberry
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Reader Comments (24)
Gwen Bell:
It really saddens me when social media people stoop to these kinds of tactics in an effort to win over their audience. It's about the conversation! ;-)
Actually, as a direct recipient of this resolve, I have to say that it has been great. Gwen is no longer consumed by her inbox, and uses it for what it ought to be used for: an efficient means of communication. I'm proud of her!
Love it. I too am resolved to ditch the lousy email habit. Thanks for doing it first and experiencing the withdrawl symptoms for all of us!
I can't imagine how wildly productive I'm going to be once I master this.
I'll be doing it with minimal sugar and no alcohol
;)
Totally love this magical reminder, lovely Gwen. I just announced my email hiatus on my blog a couple of hours ago (http://www.goddessguidebook.com/email-hiatus/), and am outsourcing as much as I can to a Support Sprite :)
Creating instead of responding is a powerful thing!
I've been thinking about this since you showed me your cute No Email sign on Saturday, and I'm considering doing it. But, even more than email, I need to get off of Twitter. I check it FAR TOO OFTEN, and need to cut back. It's not healthy!!
Sounds like a great how-to Gwen! :)
I've kind of had the opposite issue. I didn't look at my inbox from December 1st through January 24th. After sorting through 2000+ emails, I'm down to around 180 that need to be addressed/acted on/replied to.
What that tells me is that I need to figure out how to put my inbox on a diet plan more than anything else.
When I do? I'll be reducing the amount of time I spend in it permanently.
Chocolove ?
Did I submit this already or did I just close the browser tab by mistake? I got distracted (not by email, this time)...
I love the idea. I have trouble with the implementation, though, because of my job. I receive too many emails that I'm expected to address within a span of an hour or two.
This may just be evidence of the failure of email as a collaboration tool, but if we used a replacement tool, I'd probably be just as tied to that as I am to email.
I do plan to eliminate the first-thing-in-the-morning email check, though; little good ever comes of that.
I've read other posts about minimizing email checking, and I always think "nice idea, but..." And it's usually my need to send a message to someone that sabotages any attempt to minimize email checking. But this little hacklet in tip 5 is perfect. I can now send that quick email when I need to, but I don't have to open my inbox. Thank you!
I would absolutely love to do this, but I honestly think that I would have something in my personnel file w/i a week if I did. Unfortunately, I don't think this will work for those of us living the 8-5 life (more like the 7-11 life if we're talking email). My work's culture is that you read & respond to email immediately. I've been called on the phone many times to be asked if I'd read an email that was sent less than an hour before. This isn't great for productivity. I've started purposefully grouping my responses to a couple times a day to try to block time for actually completing work. I've also started to skip checking email before I'm actually in the office (unless I'm running late) and not checking it after I leave the office unless I know someone on my team is taking action on something that they'll need my support. I think this is about as far as I can take it in my job. Unless you have some brilliant suggestions? :)
Love, love, love the idea. Motivation high. Reality? Not sure....I feel very tied to my email. But I am very distracted by it, which I suppose is the point of reducing the check impulse. Somtimes I feel I spend my life on email, yet accomplish little. I get to inbox zero (process completely) a few times a week and that has been a big feat for me, something I have been working on for a year. (A year ago I had 10,000 messages in my inbox). I think I need to get better at the delete button. And an intermediate step might be to check email 3 times a day. Baby steps....
BTW, I read Leo's book The Power of Less as well about a year ago and feel I am constantly focusing on elimination of the non-essential. It is hard (for me) not to replace the non-essential with a new essential. Need to reread the book!
1. I love the option for 'my response is on my own website.' How cool is that?!?
2. I'm tempted by this, Gwen. Like, Bailey's cupcake with Lavender frosting tempted. It's wooing me.
And I don't know how the hell to make it happen.
I know, I know...you just do it, right? But my time zone issues mean there's one person, in particular, who wonders *where.things.are* if I don't email in the morning. :|
This notion of having a morning free and clear from crap makes me swoon. So much so that I'm gonna sit here tonight and figure out a way to make it happen.
You rule the school.
OK I think I'm going to try something like this - but I'm going to go for twice a day - is that cheating? I think 11:30am and 3:30pm and I'll see how it goes. I've got the compose button now, great idea thanks.
Jade
Great post ! Congratulations on weaning yourself off coffee AND email (dark chocolate isn't an addiction, it's a life-enhancing necssity) !
I stopped drinking coffee in 1996. I missed it at first and people thought I was weird. I had a headache for a week. Now I don't miss it and people still think I am weird and English because I drink tea (probably and yes, but not black tea). I find I am so much more fresh and alert in the morning, and to be blunt, my digestive system works as it should now. Most people use coffee in the morning as a laxative (as well as a stimulant) without realising.
Email - I'm still working on this. Last year I decided to check my email messages only twice per day. The most important point was to let clients, associates and friends know this was my new policy. I put a little rider in my signature to let people know not to expect quick responses from me. It was tricky re-training some clients and associates to contact me another way if they had an urgent request i.e. phone me. Outsourcing to a PA is another alternative but we are not all Tim Ferriss.
My Twitter addiction is a bigger distraction than email these days...but the filters are getting better every week and I'm improving...
Hey Gwen
love your post. Badly need to cure myself of inbox and Twitter bugs and get down to doing more productive work. Let me start this email plan where I'll check thrice a day (our office culture calls for asap responses to emails sent).
I know it will be difficult, we do everything on email. But I've seen my dwindling productivity and your article could be a timely life saver ;)
Thanks so much
Congrats Gwen!
My inbox is a huge source of work... but Janice and I are fortunate to have our virtual assistant Erica help us with it.
I'm not personally addicted to checking email in that I don't feel a pull to do so. I'd be fine ignoring it forever, but I think there would be some grave repercussions.
Good luck on your plans for simplifying your life!
I too am trying to quit the obsessive email reading at work. I turn off Outlook and only check it a few times a day now. I haven't checked my personal home email in three days; I checked it this morning while at work - 56 emails in the inbox. That's a record! I also need to fix my Twitter obsession. It's getting bad.
I too am quitting coffee. Right now, I have a headache. I'm replacing it with tea. Thankfully the month is nearly over and I only have a few days left in my part in the coffee fund.
Love this plan, Gwen. Two questions for you (or my fellow commenters) as I considering implementation:
1) Do you count your Facebook inbox and Twitter DMs and Linked In messages as email? (I turned off most email alerts for these services months ago, but now I rarely remember to check them, and when I do they're overloaded. Yikes.)
2) How long does it typically take to "respond to done"? Or maybe, I'm wondering how long it should take. I'm having visions of being tied to my computer from 2:00pm till 6:00pm and still not reaching "done."
I love the things to do instead file - I've implemented a similar system of cutting back since you mentioned it a few weeks ago, but a tangible list of things I'd love to do instead is a great idea! Life fulfillment is the name of the game.
I've been unhinged from email for the past 2 months or so and it has been utterly blissful. For 2-3 years prior to making the switch I knew that "someday" I'd take control of my inbox and stop checking it literally dozens of times per day, and then eventually it got to the point where it as a beautiful day down here in Sydney but I had a headache, was checking my email over and over again and I was feeling apathetic towards my work. That made taking control of my email a must.
I've written about "Working on the Web and Having a Life" on my own blog, but I don't want to be a spammer, so here are the best tips that worked for me:
- Eliminate the need for will power. If you're a Firefox user use the LeechBlock plugin. This is the biggest help available. For Chrome users (I made the switch a few days ago) you can use SiteBlock, which isn't as powerful, but gets the job done well enough.
- Funnel communication into more appropriate channels. While email is suitable for most types of communication, quick questions etc are better served through Twitter. Think about the types of communication most common in your day to day life, and choose channels that are most effective.
- Step it up. At first I had it so I could check email everyday, but after 4pm. Within a couple of weeks I blocked myself from email on the weekends, and then on other days of the week. The goal is to eventually check email 2-3 times per week. Continually re-evaluate your email usage, and limit your time in the inbox. The grass can always be greener.
:-)
I've made some great strides in this area, but it does feel like a losing battle sometimes. One day this week I received not one but two emails from people asking me if I'd received their previous emails - one had only been sent a few hours earlier.
Thanks for the comments & questions, all. I'm working on a vid right now that will answer your burning questions on email maintenance. If there are any others, jump in the comments and leave them. I'll also be answering questions about scaling back but staying involved. I think it's possible...and I'm still working on finding the balance...but will share what I've discovered thus far. Stay tuned.
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Next you'll be telling everyone cigarettes are bad for you. hehe. (This is inspiring.)
Thanks for posting those tips! I tried the Gmail Addict one and loved it - I exceeded my allotted time and when it asked if I'd completed that task yet, and I said "no" - it yelled FAIL at me. Too funny. :)