Writing sample
Close up of the Mail app with a red icon as it appears on an iPhone
Managing the urge to check your email
This is an invitation to take a few deep breaths, roll your shoulders back, and get practical with your device (it’s not counterintuitive, I promise).
Feeling completely exhausted by your devices and notifications? WhatsApp overwhelm, I call it, and I now have a mutual understanding with friends and family that instant replies are not expected or necessary. Funny really, in light of Covid19 being a catalyst for more widespread adoption of digital transformation from a business and industry point of view, even a cyber security point of view.
Keep reading for some super easy practical strategies designed to detox your inbox. You can apply the method anywhere you’re feeling like you’ve lost control in the face of notifications, and need to take steps to protect your mental (and physical) wellbeing.
Time for a microdose of self-care
Feel free to take a moment now to move your gaze away from the screen, if you can, focus on something further away to help readjust your eyes, take a deep breath in, roll your shoulders back, and let today go with a big noisy exhale. Give your neck a little tlc by slowly looking around to the right, back to centre, and to the left, and back to centre. These little tiny practices take so little time to do, and feel so good, have such amazing restorative power for our bodies and our minds, and yet most of us are simply not in the habit of doing them...and I think it’s fair to say reacting to things like emails has a lot to answer for here.
Why we can’t resist email
How does your email make you feel? And how often do you merely think about your emails? Let alone check them. Before the pandemic there were reports that working professionals would check their email on average 15 times per day (source: McKinsey Global Institute), and it’s estimated that this year you’ll spend more than 33 days just reading work emails, and over 26 days reading personal emails. But despite agreeing we’re all-notificationed-out, we still can’t fight the indescribable physical urge to check and react almost immediately every time an email comes in.
The reasons why we can’t resist checking our emails and responding to those little red flags are rooted in neuroscience - quite literally hardwired into our brains. Most tech and online platforms are in fact designed to keep us hooked, and the only way they achieve this is by triggering our reward-seeking ancient brain and 3 of our 4 happy hormones - dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin.
The internet was described by Dr David Greenfield as being like a giant slot machine:
You’re not guaranteed to win every time, but there is a chance that next time, you will.
It feels great when you do win.
It gives us hope that it might happen again, especially if we stick around for long enough.
It also convinces us to keep pulling the lever for fear of missing out.
The problem now is that something which was once useful in aiding our survival hasn’t evolved like technology has. My motivation for sharing this short practical guide is based on my own time-poor, email-rich routine in which my inboxes, personal as well as work, had become VERY cluttered.
FOMO
It’s technically very easy to unsubscribe from mailing lists you’re no longer engaged with, so why don’t we do it? Is it because FOMO is kicking in? You know that you haven’t opened or read one of these emails for months, if not years. But there must have been a reason why you signed up in the beginning. What if you miss something after you’ve unsubscribed?
Four steps to decluttering
You can start regaining some control over your inbox right now. Do this now! I’ve got you.
Now’s your chance to take 5 to unsubscribe to that thing that’s been bugging you for months.
Now’s the time to go and update a neglected password to something 3 times as long.
Perhaps you’ve let a free trial turn into a paid subscription and haven’t done anything about it.
Now’s the time to create a folder for those non-stop collaboration tool notifications and direct everything away to a place where things start to feel a bit more manageable, and a bit more boundary-conscious.
If you’ve got nothing to declutter (I don’t believe you), use the time to breathe in and out a little deeper, sit up straight, stand up, roll your shoulders, re-adjust your eyes.
And NOW you’re getting the dopamine hit we talked about earlier. You feel like you’ve finally ticked a bit of life admin off your list, and decluttered a little. And this felt very doable - and you can see results! It’s the instant gratification we thought we were seeking with all those notifications in the beginning.
Online safety bonus. Decluttering makes it much more likely something suspicious will stand out if and when it does land. Don’t forget that all phishing attacks trigger your neurohormones to encourage you to act without thinking twice. Notice something unusual, that sounds particularly intriguing or alarming? Deep breath in, refocus your eyes. Enough time to override your instincts. Do not click on anything contained within the message - check whether it’s genuine by contacting the alleged sender via another official means (open new browser, visit official website, dial official telephone number).