Stop monitoring mail constantly to increase productivity [Hack Your Day]
Most of us have found ways of monitoring our social services and emails all the time. Weather you set Outlook to look for new mail every minute, install an email notification program, have a Twitter client or have an RSS fee reader open at all times, you are constantly monitoring everything, and the time will come (or has already come) when something interrupts you every minute.
Even if you just glance at a popup, read the title of a feed or spend a few seconds replying to a Tweet, you are loosing focus and loosing productivity. You don’t just loose the 20 seconds spent away from your task, but also the first few seconds or minutes when you resume working will not be at peak efficiency, therefore you loose some more there too.
If you feel like I just described your work routine, perhaps it’s time to stop monitoring everything constantly. I don’t mean you should view your email once every day, but you can set some sensible guidelines. How about going through all the services you use every 90 minutes? If you email a lot you can work for 90 minutes and then go through your feeds, emails and other services in 30 minutes, creating nice and rounded two hour cycles in the day. This will help you keep your focus and remove some inefficiency from your life.
Everyone is most productive when they have time to spend focused on one task and one task only, if you have the luxury, stop trying to be in 5 places and once and dedicate 30 minutes of every two hours to following up on everything, the world can do without you for 90 minutes at a time.
Original post here: Daniel
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