Here’s a funny thing.
This week, feeling I’d lost my drive (it happens from time to time) I decided to try a little experiment. No email. Okay, not quite no email, I think I checked it Thursday, but even then, not all my email accounts, just a couple.
But I haven’t checked any of my email now for about 48 hours. The effect on me is I feel more relaxed, and I also feel as if I’ve become more productive and focussed, and I’ve even spent a little more time with the family.
Hmm…
What would happen if I only checked my email once or twice a week? Say Mondays and Thursdays? As long as everyone knew that was the only time I’d be checking my email, I guess it wouldn’t be a big deal for people.
Thinking back to about a decade ago, the only way we communicated with other people was either by phone, or by writing to them. There wasn’t any email (effectively) outside business, and did it matter?
Don’t get me wrong, email is a wonderful thing, but it really does take up far too much of my time that I could be spending on product creation and other “doing” things.
Okay then.
I’m going to try to only check email 3 times a week. Let’s start with Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and see how that works out. If I can manage that okay for a couple of weeks, I’ll trim it down to Mondays and Fridays. If that goes well for another couple of weeks, I’ll only check it out on one of those two remaining days.
On each day I check email, I’m going to allow myself fifteen minutes reading time and sixty minutes reply time. I’ll use Cool Timer to check my time usage.
I’ll report back as to how I get on and how it affects my internet business (positively or negatively) right here on my blog.
-Frank Haywood
