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The Never Ending Battle: Fighting Email Distractions

If I got a ding every time I got a new email, I’d go insane. So whenever I get a new device or try a new email program, the first thing I do is turn off the audible alert it makes when I get a new email. If I didn’t, every email would be at least a momentary interruption as my mind registers the ding. What’s more, it makes the arrival of each new email a moment of temptation; a chance for me to get off task and into my mail app checking on whatever new email arrived.

Apple has made going this route a little easier with it’s VIP feature. I’ve set it to alert me when I get an email from someone on my VIP list, so only emails from the most important people are an interruption. Importantly, I’ve been able to keep my VIP list short and the people on it are not ones who are emailing me constantly.

For many years now I’ve run my devices with the email ding turned off, but I still had the rest of the notifications options turned on. Oddly enough it wasn’t the more obvious notifications like the lock screen notifications or the banners that pop up when a new email arrives that made me realize this was still a problem, it was that badge on the app icon with the number of unread emails. Every time I was on the home screen of one of my iOS devices, that little red circle tempted me to just pop over to my email app and see what was in there.

I went ahead and turned off the app icon badges (and all other non-VIP notifications). While I was at it I turned off badges for all of my home screen apps except for Due, OmniFocus, Messages, and Drafts. In addition to helping with distraction this also increased the visibility and importance of alerts for those apps. When the red badge indicating tasks that are due soon in OmniFocus is one among many on my home screen it blends into the background. When it’s the only one it really stands out.

After I turned off the notifications on my personal devices it got me thinking about my work PC. Initially I was just going to turn off the desktop alert that popped up for new email, but I got to thinking about a couple of things:

  • I do my best, most productive work in the morning, particularly when it comes to technical tasks or high quality writing that requires intense concentration.
  • I seldom receive any email so urgent it couldn’t wait until after lunch.

So I’m trying an experiment: Outlook gets turned off before I go home at night and it doesn’t come back on until after lunch the next day.

So far I haven’t had any irate colleagues coming up to me and complaining I didn’t respond to their email fast enough (thankfully, the email culture at my workplace is not one that requires immediate responses).

I have run into a couple of issues though: Outlook is both an email app and a calendaring app. This means that I can’t open it up to look at my calendar at the beginning of the day without also catching a glimpse of my email. Now I do think my willpower is strong enough that I could keep myself from reading any email when I’m in there, but sometimes even seeing the sender and subject line can distract me into thinking about the email when I’m trying to spend my most productive time on another task. So I’m trying to develop the habit of checking my calendar in the morning on one of my iOS devices, where I have separate email and calendar apps (currently the excellent Timepage).

The other issue is that sometimes the task that I’m working on in the morning requires me to send mail and there’s no good way to do it without firing up Outlook and seeing my mailbox. This has me wishing for an email client that would allow you to send mail, but not read it.1

One way or another email has been an issue for me for a long time: Checking it too often, letting it build up in my inbox, allowing particular messages that I need to do something with (usually something unpleasant) to sit there and fester. I hope that the measures I’ve taken recently will help me make some progress, but I’ve got no illusions that these represent any sort of final victory. It’s a never ending battle.

  1. And also wishing for the flexibility to use a desktop email client other than outlook with our locked down email system, but that’s a different subject. ↩

March 20, 2017

Inventorying my Tools

One of the things I’ve been inspired to do lately is to take an inventory of all the tools I use to get work done. 1 To help bring some order to this I’ve broken it down into tools I use every day, tools that I use often, and tools that I only use occasionally, but are vital for particular tasks (within each of these categories tools are listed in no particular order).

Every Day

OmniFocus Microsoft Word Safari Chrome Outlook Spark iPhone Mail app Hours Bear 1Password Dropbox TextExpander Field Notes

Often

Drafts Byword Ulysses Workflow Excel Numbers PowerPoint Timepage My office whiteboard

Occasional But Vital

ArcGIS TransCAD Python (IDLE) TextWrangler Scrivener OmniOutliner OmniGraffle Fantastical

The list itself is kind of interesting, but I think the real value here is to reflect on the tools individually and as a set. Are there some of these where I would benefit from learning to use them better? Which ones do I want to use more often? Which ones do I want to use less often? Are there tools that don’t fit my needs anymore? What tools aren’t I using that I might benefit from?

I’d really like to move Drafts up the list and make it an app I use every day. I know I’m not using it to it’s full potential right now. On the flip side, I’d like to use Microsoft Word less often. It’s in the “daily” category because I use a PC at work and almost all of the folks I collaborate with don’t write text any other way except in Word. I’d much rather use a simpler Markdown enabled text editor (several of which you’ll see on the list). I doubt I can get it off the list entirely, but only having to open it a few times a week seems doable.

One of the tools that’s helping me diminish my reliance on Microsoft Word is Bear. It’s can export content as a Word document and, using Dropbox, I can get the exported .doc file onto my work PC fairly easily. When I initially made this list, Bear was in the “often” category, but by the time I got around to writing this article it had jumped up to “every day”.

Among the things this list has me thinking about is whether Byword is going to stick around for me much longer. It’s been a mainstay for me on both iOS and the Mac for a long time. But when I look at all of the text editors on the list I have to wonder how much room there really is for it between Bear on one hand and Ulysses on the other. About the only thing Byword has going for it right now is when I need to make some edits to a text file on the filesystem of my Mac (since both Bear and Ulysses want to store their own documents internally).

Many of the apps in the occasional category are problematic. They serve a vital purpose, but I don’t use them often enough to really achieve a level of mastery. There are a few of them like ArcGIS that were everyday apps for me in the past and enough of that knowledge has stuck around that I can still make them dance when I need to.

For some of them I probably just need to decide if a more specialized app that I seldom use is worth the overhead compared to a more general tool that I use less often (Ulysses versus Scrivener, for example). For many of them, though, I really don’t have a good alternative. It’s just not a problem I’ve got a solution to at the moment.

In addition to all the apps, you’ll notice a pair of analog tools on the list (Field Notes and my office whiteboard). Initially this list was going to be focused on just software tools, but these are important to my getting things done. In particular, the Field Notes Steno books that I use for all my note taking in meetings and the like is probably one of the most vital, and most used tool on the list.

Overall, I think this was a useful exercise. It got me thinking and caused me to make some changes to how I use certain apps. I’d encourage others to give it a try as well. It’s probably something worth doing on a regular basis.

  1. I’ve excluded personal stuff that I use purely for recreation, like Reeder and Sonos. ↩

March 13, 2017

Why am I doing this?

I am completely incapable of learning something new and not feeling the urge to write about it.

This has been most evident in my hobbies1, but lately I’ve felt the urge when it comes to certain tech and productivity related topics. Part of this is probably because I’m a bit of an insufferable know-it-all and I can’t seem to resist occasions when I can speak from a position of authority. However, over time I’ve come to realize that a big part of this is that the process of writing is beneficial to me.

When I write up something it forces me to organize my thoughts and think more deeply about what I’ve learned than I would otherwise. If it’s something from a class or a book, it forces me to take better notes (or to take notes, period) and to engage more with the subject matter. Just about anyone would probably be better off taking good notes and doing some review/organization afterwords. Most of them don’t necessarily feel the need to make that process public. But for me, at least, a key part of the motivation to follow through on those things is the fact that it will be out there for all the world to see. Hence, this blog.

In short, the reason I’m doing this is because writing about something I learn helps me learn about it better. I’m no productivity guru2. I have no ambitions of becoming the next Shawn Blanc or David Allen. Consider this more of a journey of self-improvement, and if you’re on that journey too, consider me a fellow student.

  1. For instance, I’m a gun guy, and a detailed summary of every firearms training course I take seems to end up online. ↩
  2. As you’ll see soon enough a big part of the reason I’m interested in organization and productivity is because I’m naturally so bad at it. ↩

March 11, 2017