Are you one of those people who checks his or her inbox – ahem – incessantly?
You know, every time you pause from a task. Or every time you hang up from a phone call? Or, in the middle of tasks, when you’re “thinking?”
Try this: Make a tic mark EVERY time you check your email. Don’t count ’em up until you’re through with work. Then at the end of the day, count them up. You could be very unhappily surprised with the result.
Each one of those tic marks costs you. It costs you productivity. It costs you focus. It costs you money.
Here’s a challenge: Take that number, and divide it by ten. In other words, if you checked 71 times, your resulting number is 7. Set the resulting number as your target for checking email in a day. Then, post that number on your CRT, or somewhere where you can’t miss it. Then work on resisting your incessant email checking.
Remember – we recommend checking email only 5 times daily. It works for us, and can work for you.
Let us know how it goes.
