E-Mail Addiction 12-Steps Stumbles

netbuzz writes "Talk about offering an alcoholic a drink? No. 2 of 12-step program for e-mail addiction: "Commit to keeping your inbox empty." ... Reuters is reporting today on this program from an executive coach. Here are 11 other reasons why it won't work." I know what the bottom of my inbox looks like, I just only get to see it for a few minutes a year.

Comments

Re:This is just GTD

[arivanov]

And this is the exact reason for the existence of the crackberry and its analogues. Some people consider it essential that any of their messages get through to you now and immediately and you read them regardless of what you are doing at the moment. This is generally the same type of people who forget that freedom of speech actually includes the freedom of not to listen. These are also the same kind of people who cannot comprehend the importance of being able to work without interruption. Hence, here is my simple program for beating email addiction (it will not work for all workflows though):

• Change your workflow to read your email only at fixed intervals at fixed times during the day devoting the rest to doing work. Ensure that you are managing your time, and not email.
• Turn off instant notifications, toolbar email status, cretinberries and analogues.
• Once you have seen what gets missed when doing so create suitable notifications for the really important stuff that cannot and should not be missed. Make sure that important means only events that actually alter your schedule and not every email coming in.
• Rinse, repeat until you get yourself up to 80%+ doing scheduled work instead of interrupt driven one.

Once you have succeeded in this you have beaten your addiction. Been there, done that.