Before bathroom, before tooth brushing, or coffee, you read your e mail. Your loved ones are pleading with you to cease spending so much time in front of the PC screen. Seem familiar? E-mail addiction is quick to get hooked into, because it follows a pattern of intermittent reward. Experts know the quickest way to change a dog's habits is to reward him appropriately for the desired changes.
We check our inbox for a reward: a communication from a loved one, a critical answer to a tech question, a random surprise that can improve our day. Sounds totally reasonable. And it is. Yet the very structure of how we receive these letters reinforces the intermittent reward system and plugs right into our animal brain. We page through piles of useless E mail looking for that gold nugget.
Here are 5 simple tricks to help you if you fear you are an E-mail addict. The idea is to get the process of stimulus/random reward interrupted.
1. Identify the extent of your habit. How much time do you spend in front of your E-mail? How much time reading through what is essentially junk and time wasters? It's critical to recognize and assess the actual impact it is having on your daily life.
2. Use features in your E mail program like filters to automatically select out and remove from your attention any non-essential mail. Employ labels and folders to collect legitimate communications such as friends, family, business related, work associates. Then you will not be combing through junk to get to valid letters. I have several categories that bypass my inbox and go straight into the trash. This closes the gap between the "sometimes" rewards so your experiences become more predictable.
3. Set a realistic block of E-mail time, perhaps divided into 2 or more 15-45 minute daily sessions. Set an an alarm if you must, to be sure you do not go over the time. After awhile you will adjust the total time to meet the need.
4. Using your Email program features, figure out how to separate your correspondence into categories of "action needed" and "information". Attend to action needed E mail right away. Save your information E-mail to do all at once later.
5. Take back the phone! Handle everything you can by phone. Let your correspondents know you want to use Email to set phone appointments rather than electronically. Bring back the human contact this may be replacing in your life. That human contact is one of the needs that may be feeding the obsession with E-mail.
6. Use a kind but determined hand with yourself during your transformation. Only check electronic correspondence during your scheduled times. When you have a deadline for a critical mission, close down your email for certain times and see if you are more productive. Let others know you have decided not to permit the demand of E-mail steal your time. For imperative matters, please call you. Allow the sound of another's voice be your new reward.
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