The Email Edge
You might be surprised to learn that I don’t have email on my phone. At all.
I used to though, and I became a slave to it.
I would literally wake up in the morning and reach for my phone. So within five minutes of the new day, I would be in reaction-mode to what I’d just read. And it didn’t matter whether what I read was positive or negative or somewhere in between; what mattered was that it was on my mind when I needed to be focused on something else – like getting my kids off to school.
One time, in particular, stands out. I received an email with a concern from a studio parent. It was a totally solvable problem, something I had no problem communicating about, but still, it followed me around ALL DAY because it was the first thing I saw. Ugh! Resetting my focus seemed to take forever, even AFTER I had responded and the issue had been fixed.
Not long after that, I took a personal development course by my friend and mentor Darren Hardy called Insane Productivity. During the lessons, we did a deep dive into our personal distractions. Of course, email was a big one for me. (P.S. If you’d like an intro to Darren’s work, please email me. It’s the BEST!)
I realized that having email on my phone was encouraging me to do more email, which was … you guessed it … creating more email.
And not only that, all those emails were sticking with me throughout the day, cluttering up my mind like too many post-it notes.
It’s like every time I would get an email, I would send an email, and then those emails were getting together and having little email babies. And the email babies were crying and needed to be fed ALL THE TIME. The more I did, the more there was to do!
The cycle was maddening. And exhausting. I didn’t even know how much it was affecting me until I stepped back from it.
Shortly after studying Insane Productivity, I was setting it up a new iPhone and it dawned on me that I didn’t know my email password. I was literally opening up my laptop to go find it, when I realized that I didn’t HAVE to set up email on my phone at all. So I just chose NOT to.
That’s it.
The miracle of all this is that now I’m not in my email as much and so I get less email! It’s truly transformed my focus to be more intentional with my emails, both with reading them and responding to them.
And so my challenge to you is this, business owner to business owner: If you are like me and easily distracted, and you sometimes find yourself so deep into your email that it takes all day to climb out, take the plunge and get it off your phone. Rip the Band-Aid and just do it.
Give yourself the opportunity to see what life is like without the constant interruptions and temptations to check. See what your focus is like without carrying around the email baggage (or babies!) that the day used to bring.
I’m pretty sure you’ll be happy with the results … OK, not just happy. FREE.
I know I feel that way, and now I can see that my daily life is simply better for it. My focus, my family, and my business are all reaping the benefits. It can totally benefit you too.
Love, Misty