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sidsavara.com: "When it comes to email, ignorance is bliss. That’s why if you’ve got something important you want to make progress on, I have these four words for you: Don’t check your email.
While some of the author's "don't let someone else control your life and productivity" comment (and subsequent manifesto against podcasts in the car, of all things) is slightly New Age-y, I can understand the point he's making on an efficiency standpoint that you lose your morning entirely when you check email and get absorbed in all of the action items produced therein from links and replies. However, there are important emails that need to be received in the morning (for example, an email canceling class that was sent after going to sleep). For this reason, I check my school email during my morning routine, but leave my personal email (where anything not sent from a CMU email address goes) untouched until lunch or later. It's a compromise, and certainly there might be reasons why I would need to act on a school email, but it's a moderate way to manage time and not be absorbed in Facebook and newsletters during the morning.
Wow. That article was a hundred percent right. There was time when I was checking my email almost every twenty minutes, and for no real reason at all. It was just something to do, and something that made me feel like I was getting something done instead of doing what was needed to be done. While I have started to break that habit I have not broken the checking your email in the morning. It's a habit, and a bad one. The days I appreciate the most are when I don't near my email all day. I think people have become too dependent on immediate communication because like this article states people are always checking their email instead of working on something with importance.
While I, as well as the rest of society, may have a slight addiction to constant email checking, I don't think that's a bad thing. If I'm on vacation it's harder to reach me, but if I'm at school then it's my responsibility to be constantly reachable.
I agree with Brian as well, one of the most important times to check my email is in the morning. Teachers cancel class, post homework and answer important questions. It takes me about two seconds and I don't think that it is distracting or a mind suck. If you check your email consistently, then it's easier to navigate and organize.
I agree with both Ariel and Brian I think that at times it can be important to check your email in the morning to prevent mishaps, but I also think that the author is correct. I know that I get sucked into faceboook and email and can get lost in them while I should be doing work. What I do is to take breaks and so that I feel "productive" in my breaks I check my email. I also think that having multiple email accounts can cut down on spam and on irrelevant checking. For instance I have school and other email separated in different accounts and it makes things much more efficient.
To continue what others have said, I too have become all-too-dependent on checking email constantly, and I think the utility of it depends on the user's work environment; for instance, at a desk job I had this past summer, the expectation was to have email open in one window, with one or two sentence long emails encouraging quick reply being the norm. I currently use one email account with multiple addresses forwarding to it and several filters that limit the number of emails that actually make it to my 'inbox' - these would include mostly emails from individuals meant specifically for me (i.e., not mass-mailings). I check my inbox on my phone between classes, and not seeing all the other stuff until I get in front of my computer and open the associated folders really helps.
I completely agree with Ariel with this. I don't think it's a bad thing at all to check your email often. If you don't, then when you finally do, and your inbox is overflowing, it's a much more daunting task than if you would have done it bit by bit. Also, especially for us, there is a bit of urgency in a lot of email we get that we can't really push off. Classes being canceled, meetings being changed, things that are expected to be done before a certain time... if you don't check it often you can very easily get behind on things. There's also things that aren't necessarily urgent, but can be to your advantage if you respond early, or before someone else. One of the things the author said in the article was "Who is in charge of your time – you, or the person emailing you?" To be honest, in our position, it is often the person emailing us. While stating it in that way is pushing it a bit, our professors and other people in the SOD that are our superiors really do have a very big impact on how we spend our time.
I agree with Ariel. It's just too important to not check your email. In today's society people DO expect email to be a near instantaneous form of communication. After a few times getting burned with canceled classes and changed call times the very first thing I do in the morning is check my iPhone. I quickly assess priority level of emails. If I don't need to address it now, it gets marked as "unread" and I save it for a later time.
But I'm not disagreeing, checking email is a trap. And it's one I fall into quite often. Avoiding that is important. But let's be honest. Checking email is not metawork. It's real work that has to be done at some point or another. What's important is to know if your time right now has to be spent doing other things.
I agree with what people have said. I always check my email in the morning and before I go to bed. i also check it continuously through out the day. And, at least for me personally, I often get important emails that i need to respond to that i get. Since I have a MacBook Pro, my email is always up anyway while i work and unless its something i need to respond to or remember i delete it instantly. Its not like it distracts me to the point that it effects what i am doing in a negative way.
Its true that checking email can be a distraction, but this mostly occurs when you are looking for a distraction. It's important to respond to your email in a timely manner or you may miss opportunities, new deadlines, news, or something that could have made you more prepared for your day. What if you spent the whole morning on a report and then check your email after lunch only to see a message saying that it's not needed anymore. The important thing is to quick prioritize as you process your inbox. Emails from Mom can be left for after lunch, Facebook, ads, newsletters can all be left. You can quickly see what needs to be deleted so you don't come back to an inbox of 35 emails. And you can read the ones from teachers or programs that might be important. You can probably tell from the subject and the first few lines if its urgent or can be added to your later To Do list. But checking your email can be a way to get yourself prepared for your day and ready to focus on the next thing.
I would think that if I were working in a job with steady hours, checking email actually would be a good way to get me started. It's hard to jump right into work, and checking email is certainly more productive than prolonging an early morning snack or breakfast at the office. I think a lot of the reasoning used in this article is a big stretch; it really should be called "7 Reasons to Not Spend Your Entire Morning Dealing With Email". I think most people can handle the fact that some emails should be dealt with at a later date, and will thus deal with them later.
10 comments:
While some of the author's "don't let someone else control your life and productivity" comment (and subsequent manifesto against podcasts in the car, of all things) is slightly New Age-y, I can understand the point he's making on an efficiency standpoint that you lose your morning entirely when you check email and get absorbed in all of the action items produced therein from links and replies. However, there are important emails that need to be received in the morning (for example, an email canceling class that was sent after going to sleep). For this reason, I check my school email during my morning routine, but leave my personal email (where anything not sent from a CMU email address goes) untouched until lunch or later. It's a compromise, and certainly there might be reasons why I would need to act on a school email, but it's a moderate way to manage time and not be absorbed in Facebook and newsletters during the morning.
Wow. That article was a hundred percent right. There was time when I was checking my email almost every twenty minutes, and for no real reason at all. It was just something to do, and something that made me feel like I was getting something done instead of doing what was needed to be done. While I have started to break that habit I have not broken the checking your email in the morning. It's a habit, and a bad one.
The days I appreciate the most are when I don't near my email all day. I think people have become too dependent on immediate communication because like this article states people are always checking their email instead of working on something with importance.
While I, as well as the rest of society, may have a slight addiction to constant email checking, I don't think that's a bad thing. If I'm on vacation it's harder to reach me, but if I'm at school then it's my responsibility to be constantly reachable.
I agree with Brian as well, one of the most important times to check my email is in the morning. Teachers cancel class, post homework and answer important questions. It takes me about two seconds and I don't think that it is distracting or a mind suck. If you check your email consistently, then it's easier to navigate and organize.
I agree with both Ariel and Brian I think that at times it can be important to check your email in the morning to prevent mishaps, but I also think that the author is correct. I know that I get sucked into faceboook and email and can get lost in them while I should be doing work. What I do is to take breaks and so that I feel "productive" in my breaks I check my email. I also think that having multiple email accounts can cut down on spam and on irrelevant checking. For instance I have school and other email separated in different accounts and it makes things much more efficient.
To continue what others have said, I too have become all-too-dependent on checking email constantly, and I think the utility of it depends on the user's work environment; for instance, at a desk job I had this past summer, the expectation was to have email open in one window, with one or two sentence long emails encouraging quick reply being the norm. I currently use one email account with multiple addresses forwarding to it and several filters that limit the number of emails that actually make it to my 'inbox' - these would include mostly emails from individuals meant specifically for me (i.e., not mass-mailings). I check my inbox on my phone between classes, and not seeing all the other stuff until I get in front of my computer and open the associated folders really helps.
I completely agree with Ariel with this. I don't think it's a bad thing at all to check your email often. If you don't, then when you finally do, and your inbox is overflowing, it's a much more daunting task than if you would have done it bit by bit.
Also, especially for us, there is a bit of urgency in a lot of email we get that we can't really push off. Classes being canceled, meetings being changed, things that are expected to be done before a certain time... if you don't check it often you can very easily get behind on things.
There's also things that aren't necessarily urgent, but can be to your advantage if you respond early, or before someone else. One of the things the author said in the article was "Who is in charge of your time – you, or the person emailing you?" To be honest, in our position, it is often the person emailing us. While stating it in that way is pushing it a bit, our professors and other people in the SOD that are our superiors really do have a very big impact on how we spend our time.
I agree with Ariel. It's just too important to not check your email. In today's society people DO expect email to be a near instantaneous form of communication. After a few times getting burned with canceled classes and changed call times the very first thing I do in the morning is check my iPhone. I quickly assess priority level of emails. If I don't need to address it now, it gets marked as "unread" and I save it for a later time.
But I'm not disagreeing, checking email is a trap. And it's one I fall into quite often. Avoiding that is important. But let's be honest. Checking email is not metawork. It's real work that has to be done at some point or another. What's important is to know if your time right now has to be spent doing other things.
I agree with what people have said. I always check my email in the morning and before I go to bed. i also check it continuously through out the day. And, at least for me personally, I often get important emails that i need to respond to that i get. Since I have a MacBook Pro, my email is always up anyway while i work and unless its something i need to respond to or remember i delete it instantly. Its not like it distracts me to the point that it effects what i am doing in a negative way.
Its true that checking email can be a distraction, but this mostly occurs when you are looking for a distraction. It's important to respond to your email in a timely manner or you may miss opportunities, new deadlines, news, or something that could have made you more prepared for your day. What if you spent the whole morning on a report and then check your email after lunch only to see a message saying that it's not needed anymore. The important thing is to quick prioritize as you process your inbox. Emails from Mom can be left for after lunch, Facebook, ads, newsletters can all be left. You can quickly see what needs to be deleted so you don't come back to an inbox of 35 emails. And you can read the ones from teachers or programs that might be important. You can probably tell from the subject and the first few lines if its urgent or can be added to your later To Do list. But checking your email can be a way to get yourself prepared for your day and ready to focus on the next thing.
I would think that if I were working in a job with steady hours, checking email actually would be a good way to get me started. It's hard to jump right into work, and checking email is certainly more productive than prolonging an early morning snack or breakfast at the office. I think a lot of the reasoning used in this article is a big stretch; it really should be called "7 Reasons to Not Spend Your Entire Morning Dealing With Email". I think most people can handle the fact that some emails should be dealt with at a later date, and will thus deal with them later.
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