I Stopped Checking Email and it Changed My Entire Life

My. Entire. Life. It will never be the same.

Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it has made a difference. Let me tell you how I decided to turn off push notifications for my email and then how it has affected me.

It was all Tim Ferriss’s idea. You see, I’m currently reading his book The Four Hour Work Week and in said book Tim suggests that you only check email twice a day. He says that you should designate specific times each day to log in. The ultimate goal, according to Ferriss is to wean yourself off even further to check email only weekly or even monthly. This doesn’t seem possible to me right now, but twice a day? Ya, I can rock that shit.

So I did it. I turned off my notifications. No more little annoying-ass red circles on my email app.

I was addicted.

I used to wake up every morning to like 80 emails. I would wake up, roll over and start my day by deleting them. Picture that: me in that weird place between asleep and awake, groggy as hell, swiping to delete emails like a recent divorcee trying to get lucky on Tinder. And that would set the precedent for the rest of my day. Not the lonely divorcee looking to rebound part, but the sense of busyness that comes from checking emails first thing.

I began to feel addicted. And it wasn’t just email. Social media would fall into that too. I would stumble out of bed like a zombie scanning through Instagram or Facebook, just to make sure I had seen everything I possibly could before letting the dogs out and making coffee.

I had had enough

So. I turned off my notifications. I no longer get that little red circle telling me how many unread emails I have. I no longer have a little red circle telling me that someone has had some ambiguous interaction with a post or that it is someone’s birthday and would I like to tell that person happy birthday. Now I check my social media on my terms, not that goddamned red circle.

I check my email at 10 after I have had a chance to get settled at work and then again at 3 so that if there is anything super time sensitive I catch it before I leave. Otherwise, my coworkers can reach me on Slack or GASP lean over to me in our super open office scheme and God forbid talk to me.

What’s happened since?

Well, for starters, I am now unreachable via email or Slack outside business hours. If something super-duper important needs to happen I can be reached via text or a good ol fashioned phone call.

I no longer feel obligated to check my email. I used to be compulsive about it. Fret about not responding quick enough. Tim (we are on a first name basis since I started this post) makes a good point when he says that email was supposed to replace real mail, not become a chat platform.

I don’t feel nearly as stressed out. I feel substantially more productive. I feel like I have a better work/life balance because I can now keep the two separate. I also feel like my social media addiction is under control because I don’t jump every time that little dot says I have something. It isn’t crucial for me to stop what I’m doing because someone liked a picture. I don’t need to open Facebook just to clear the notifications.

In short, I am really glad email no longer plays such a crucial role in my life. I totally understand how prevalent it is in our society and that there’s a cultural expectation to be accessible 24/7, but I think it is also extremely important to check out/close off/ disconnect/ unplug/ reset/ whatever and you can’t do that if you are constantly waiting for an email or social media notification.