Productivity Hack – Email Distractions a Thing of the Past
The constant bombardment of emails in this day and age can drive anyone mad, especially YOU – a hard working entrepreneur! You’re time and skills and talents are destined for better things than wasting time frittering away on emails. The time has come to change.
We have tried numerous email tactics to deal with emails but they all failed…
We tried the rule of only allowing ourselves allocated times to do email and turning off all notifications but it is all in vain when without fail, you have to check your email for something.
Perhaps to just quickly nip onto email to fetch an attachment, or get a date off someone or quickly send a file or something along those lines and inevitably, you find your eyes gazing over the mounting emails pouring into your inbox…
It’s hard to resist opening them when the subject lines are so enticing, we are curious beings after all… and then it happens, ‘click’, you open one, “I’ll just read one and that’s it” you say innocently to yourself.
Before long you have frittered away your time being distracted by email after email. And when you do finally stop it’s hard to get back into what you were doing in the first place. You might give some a quick reply here and there or read some but reply to them later – it’s all distracting and time wasting. A quick reply here and there doesn’t benefit anybody if it isn’t helpful or answer all questions, emails are part of your marketing communications so each one must be replied to properly.
How many of you browse over the emails just to check and then come back to them later? That’s just wasting your time reading emails twice! Are you guilty of that? How much time do you waste reading emails twice we wonder.
As an entrepreneur trying to make it in life, you can’t afford to waste time by being unproductive.
The truth is, no email is THAT important that it can’t wait a few hours. If it was that important the sender would call you.
Your emails can wait till YOU are ready. Don’t waste time distracted by email, use Inbox Pause.
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Here’s How It Works
1. Inbox Pause adds a pause button to your Gmail like this:
2. When you click that button, new messages will stop arriving in your Inbox. They will be held instead temporarily in a special label until you are ready for them. While your Inbox is paused, you’ll see a banner at the top of your Gmail window like this:
3. When you ‘unpause’ your inbox, all of the messages that you received during the break will be moved to your Inbox, and new messages will arrive as before.
It’s as easy as that. So all you have to do is have set times in your day when you check emails, for most it is first thing in the morning and in the afternoon, potentially even at the end of the day too. You can still send emails while you are on pause remember, then simply ‘unpause’ to let all the emails in and then straight away ‘Pause’ the inbox again. This way you can work till inbox ‘zero’ and not be bogged down with more coming in as you are doing it.
The build up of email can be stressful and distracting while doing work so why not give it a go today?!
ACTION: Install Inbox Pause here: www.inboxpause.com (If you don’t have Google Apps for your email try searching for one that works with your email)
ACTION: Schedule a consistent and convenient time to do your emails 2/3 times a day and no more. Be strict on your self, even just a glance at unopened emails can fill your head with clutter and curiosity that will play on your mind distracting you from working productively. Having a dedicated time to do emails will mean you get through them quicker (because you are actioning them right there and then) and will help you to be more productive the rest of the time. So now you have even more time to read great articles on atomic 😉