Back in the early days of this blog I wrote about my problems checking email too often during the day. At the time, too much email checking was leading to all kinds of distractions while I dealt with the little replies and messages coming at me from all directions. To solve this problem I set a strict limit: I’d check my email two, maybe three times a day, at set times of the day, and absolutely no more.
This worked pretty well for a while until I got a new office Day Job that left me with all kinds of slow time during the day…so I started pulling out my phone and checking email during work lulls hoping for some stimulation. As you might expect, this led me to be more scatterbrained, less productive, and ultimately more tired during the day—which you can read all about in my second e-mail checking update.
The downfalls of too much email checking are numerous, as this New York Times piece points out: workers who checked their email more often reported higher stress levels, while the very act of checking email can make us less productive since we’re switching between multiple tasks at once and doing each one less efficiently.
The advantages of staying away from email add up fast: less time spent checking email equals more time for other things, while less stress means you can use your existing worktime more efficiently, sending you on an upward spiral of awesome.
Though I’ve talked a lot about the news and smartphone addictions that have plagued me since coming to Japan, I’m thinking the time’s come for an update on email specifically, since it’s helpful to report on the good as well as the bad ;-)
The TLDR version is that my e-mail-checking is pretty much entirely under control now and I feel really good about it (woo-hoooooooooooo!). There’s three main reasons why that is…
1. When I Had More Coming in Through Email, I Checked it a LOT More
When I first wrote about my e-mail checking back in 2017 I was working as an online test-grader, and a lot of announcements about scheduling and available shifts came in via my personal email. This meant that if I wanted to stay on top of when I was working I had to keep my email app close at hand.
I was also doing a lot more freelance work back then, which I conducted almost entirely via my personal email account. Sometimes these jobs required a quick turnaround, which meant that the sooner I got the email, the more time I’d have to finish the job…which also gave me more incentive to check email early, and often.
Fortunately, I no longer get much Day Job-related business via e-mail (hurray!) and I do a lot less freelance work than I did before. This makes it less likely that I’ll receive something that requires an urgent response—which means I feel comfortable and confident setting email aside while I work on other things.
Of course, I still get antsy and pull up email if I’m expecting some important response or bit of news (Confession: I did a quick email check twenty minutes before writing this sentence for that very reason), though these instances happen a lot less often now. Whereas before I was eager for any bit of opportunity coming in via email that could give me a quick energy boost, my expectations now feel a lot more under control.
2. Being in Japan Means Most of My Email Comes in at Night
Japan runs on a 13- or 14-hour time difference from East Coast time depending on the time of year (no Daylight Savings Time here!), which means that emails sent during business hours generally reach my inbox while I’m in bed. This means that I get fewer emails during the day, since most of the people emailing me are back in the old U.S. of A.
Being aware of this has made it exponentially easier to avoid checking email during the day, Japan time, by eliminating the incentive—why pull out your phone for an email check when nothing’s coming in?
3. I Feel Fatigued by Screens, Work, and Messages, and Often Just Want to Disconnect
Finally, moreso than ever before, I catch myself not wanting to be bombarded by messages, whether they be emails, texts, or even physical mail. Instead, I’d like to spend my time focusing on the task at hand, rather than worrying about new tasks coming in.
This frame of mind makes it easier to avoid things like phone and email checking because they just give me more work to do. Instead, if I limit incoming messages to certain times of the day, I can deal with more of them at once as a separate task instead of jumping back and forth between shorter messages and bigger tasks. Because the jumping around causes me to feel less focused, I get more done when I consolidate my work, including email.
What Does My Current Email Checking Schedule Look Like?
After a few false starts making a daily work schedule in Japan, I started checking email every morning before leaving for work. Here’s a more detailed version of my morning routine:
- Get up
- Shower
- Get dressed
- Eat breakfast
- Brush and floss teeth
- Check email (on phone)
- Make daily To-Do list
- Pack up and leave for work
I like this new routine a lot because checking email in the morning allows me to keep tabs on any important messages that come in during the night, Japan time. Likewise, checking email before making my To-Do list makes it ridiculously easy to integrate urgent email items into my daily plan—if something comes in that I have to take care of, I can write it down immediately so I don’t forget.
But the really, REALLY good thing about this system is that while most mornings I usually have enough time to rattle off a quick response or two, I don’t have time to handle bigger issues because I, you know, have to go to work. This means I’m less inclined to jump into dealing with email problems immediately like I used to—anything that comes in through email gets handled later, when I’m ready.
…and I usually handle those things later in the evening, during my optional second email check. This second check almost always happens on my laptop, where I clean out junk mail and deal with anything that needs dealing with. Rarely do any surprises come in during this second email check—remember that because of the 14-hour time difference, my day is America’s night, which means fewer accumulated messages :-)
More and more often, though, I find myself skipping the second daily check and using my evening worktime for more important things. If my morning email didn’t reveal anything pressing, I might hold off on handling the little things until the next day or the weekend, leaving me with more time to devote to bigger projects.
And that feels pretty good.
Consolidate Your Email Checking and Win Back More Time
I write about my own email habits in hopes that you too can consider how often you check email and take steps to reduce it if it’s slowing you down. Do you find yourself pulling up your email app anytime you get a phone alert? Then turn off email alerts like I did in 2017—it’ll mean you spend less time jumping into your email to handle every little thing that comes up.
If your work (creative or otherwise) doesn’t require you to respond to emails super quickly, consider the advantages of consolidating your email checks and dealing with batches of them all at once, leaving you more time to focus on other things. Experiment with different times of day and a frequency that suit your priorities—is it better to check email in the morning, at lunchtime, or after dinner? Is once a day, three times a day, or more often the ideal number? Try setting a schedule and seeing what feels right, then stick to it until it becomes habit—at which point you’ll wonder why you ever spent so much time on email in the first place.
So unless something goes badly wrong or changes drastically, this’ll probably be my last e-mail update for a while ;-)