Gtd / productivity tip: Don’t check email at night!

One of the wonderful, or not so wonderful thing that internet devices has brought to our lives is always having a Internet connection, and allowing us to check email anytime.

For me, the iPhone has literally plugged my head into the Internet. And I find myself always wanting to check email. Check in the morning. Check while waiting for the elevators. Check before I go to sleep...

It has become and addiction and is starting to prove to be a distraction.

Yesterday, I came by a book by Naoyuki Honda, a Japanese productivity expert. Inside his book, he has a nice productivity tip - don’t check email at night. His primary reason, if I recall correctly, is that at night, you don’t have a specific time where you end and stop work.

In other words, you don’t have a deadline to stop working, and you fall in the trap of getting absorbed into the work that the emails lead you to do, and distracts you from other tasks like reading a book, studying, watching news, or simply resting.

I like this tip, and I’m going to try hard to NOT check emails after I get home.

Ok, so I don’t open my email software on my desktop. It’s all ok, right? Oh no, yes, iPhone has push emails! So, do we really need push email? My life was fine without it before, so I’m sure I can handle. On that note, I’m turning off push.

That’s right! I control my emails, not the other way around.