Breaking the Email Addiction: Embracing Scheduled Checking for Mental Clarity

Do you struggle with constantly checking your email or phone notifications? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson discusses how constantly checking your emails can have a negative impact on productivity and mental well-being. 

Whether you work in an office or work for yourself, many people fall victim to constantly checking their emails. This might not be at the fault of an individual person. This can stem from a culture of needing to respond to messages and emails quickly. Tyson refers to a study that shows that a constant string of emails can keep employees in a state of high alert all the time and actually increase stress levels.

It can be difficult to maintain focus when checking emails. If you are focusing on a task and you keep stopping to check an email, it will take more time to complete that task. It helps more to schedule time to check emails in blocks so you can complete all of your tasks for the day.

Tyson provides a few tips on checking emails at specific times throughout the day. Choose times in the day that work for you or when you usually find there is some downtime. If you find yourself more focused in the morning, check emails after lunch. If you have a specific day where a majority of your meetings are in the afternoon, check your emails in the morning.

Another tip is to communicate this schedule with clients. Let them know in your email signature that you check emails a few times a day so they know they might not get a response quickly. This way, you are able to maintain a level of consistency and efficiency in your day.

Take a listen!

Episode Highlights:

• 2:42 Discusses the challenges and costs of constantly checking emails
• 3:47 Discussion of how a study shows that constant emails increase stress levels
• 7:09 Provides pointers for transitioning to checking emails only at designated times

🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

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Transcripts: Breaking the Email Addiction: Embracing Scheduled Checking for Mental Clarity

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximum lawyer podcast. Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:00:24) - Hey, everyone. Tyson here. Welcome back to another Saturday episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Before I dive in today into the intricacies of our digital relationships with email, Jim and I have an exclusive offer we're thrilled to share with you. We've spent a lot of time on this. It's called Maximum Lawyer and Minimum Time. It's a roadmap that we have meticulously designed to guide you in building the firm of your dreams. This is normally something that we just give to guild members whenever they join the guild. But what we're going to do is we're going to extend this offer to our podcast community. And what we're going to do is give the first stage of maximum lawyer and minimum time to you completely free. All you have to do is text me at (314) 501-9260. Just text stage 1 to 3 145019260.

Speaker 2 (00:01:21) - And the guide it encapsulate what's really the years and years now seven years of expert advice that we've gotten from many people that we've had on the podcast as it encapsulates our experiences over the years. So I hope, I hope that you will take advantage of it because there's a lot of great information in there. So check it out. Just remember text stage one to us and we'll send that out to you right away. All right. So let's get back to today's focal point. And that is our really our modern day obsession with emails and the transformative power of checking our email on a schedule. Right. How about that? Instead of that constant dinging that you get, let's just start by saying turn off the notifications. That's that's a given. At this point. You should not have notifications, your stress levels. If you do have notifications on your watch or on your phone, it's probably driving you nuts. And your stress levels are probably through the roof. But what I want to talk about today, though, is checking email on a schedule, because I understand that the conveniences of this digital era that we've been living in, living in, they're great, but they're also not without their challenges.

Speaker 2 (00:02:42) - There is that constant urge to always refresh your page, always refresh your inboxes, check your email, pick up your phone. Look at it is a it's a constant challenge that many of us have grappled with or currently grappled with on a I wouldn't even say daily basis. I would say a minute by minute basis. I know how some of you are of seeing you in real life. I know. I know how it goes. I've been there myself. It's a very stressful thing. But the question is at what cost? What does it cost us? What is this ongoing digital vigilance exact on our mental well-being, on our effectiveness as attorneys and as business owners, and on our efficiency? You know, these are definite costs. And there's this interesting study. It's from UC Irvine and the United States Army, which I felt I thought that was a really odd combination. But what they do is they tracked participants with heart rate monitors both before and after subjecting them to email. Yes, I said, subjecting them to email.

Speaker 2 (00:03:47) - And they found that a relentless stream of emails keeps people in high alert state, which significantly escalates stress levels. And then on the other hand, though, they found that limiting email access dramatically reduces stress levels, which is interesting. It actually gets better. Those without access to email switched windows an average of 18 times per hour compared to people with access to email. They did so on an average of 37 times per hour, which was a significant difference. What was really bad, though, is once you are interrupted by an email or an email notification, it takes an average of 23 minutes to regain the same level of concentration that you had on that initial task, which is just shocking to me. And if you kind of think about Tim Ferriss strategy that he talked about in the four hour workweek, and what's interesting is, is and I don't think he really had the science to back this up at the time, but he talked about how he only checked emails a couple times a day and he did so at designated times.

Speaker 2 (00:05:00) - And he did it to minimize interruptions, to maintain his focus and to also reduces stress. And I understand how some of you are right now. You're probably saying, well, I can't do that because I'm going to miss something really important. There's going to be something really crucial and I can't miss it. And let's be honest, that's ridiculous. At this point, you're probably just trying to find ways to get back. In your email inbox. You're trying to find an excuse to do it. You're looking for that dopamine hit of checking your emails, what you're doing. And it's it is not worth it. The likelihood of you having something super urgent hit your inbox is very unlikely. If it's that urgent, they're probably going to be giving you a phone call, which just how it works today and as Tim Ferriss puts, being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing in is far more unpleasant. That is a very, very good point. Okay. That overwhelm. It's very unpleasant. Not a good thing was interesting.

Speaker 2 (00:06:01) - There's actually there's another study. It was printed. It was published in computers in human behavior. And they found that. And so this is what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that you pick a couple times a day to check your email three times a day at most. But they found that people who check emails only three times daily, they report significantly diminished stress levels. On top of that, it boosts productivity and it has positive effects, actually tangible positive effects on overall well-being. So the proof is in the pudding. Okay, it's there. The science backs it up. Don't try to tell me that you're more productive if you check email all the time because you're not. The data does not support your position. If you are at this point checking your email on a regular basis, you're doing so because you want the dopamine hit. That's why you're doing it. All right. So here are some pointers for the transition to only scheduling your email checks. Make sure you do establish designated times and make sure that you know everyone in your on your team knows about it and you're going to want to make sure you're aiming for periods after your core work tasks.

Speaker 2 (00:07:09) - For example, I like to do like my main thinking work in the morning and so I don't check my email until after that. Okay, so mine's at 1130. Yours may can vary from time to time. There are several studies I've seen that that support. You should not check it in the morning at least first thing. Definitely not first thing. So don't pick up your phone and check it right away. But do choose designated times. I think starting first thing in the morning with email is probably a really, really bad thing. The second thing is just make sure you have transparent communication with your clients and the people that you deal with on a regular basis. I use autoresponder. I know that that sometimes is unpopular for many people. You can use a signature or put something in your signature, you put something in your footers. It just let people know that you have a certain schedule. It could be as simple as I review emails at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. daily. Okay. It can be something as simple as that.

Speaker 2 (00:08:03) - I do want to caution you, though, I once had a client email me because I did not respond at one of those times and they were unhappy. So if you you could you could just say that you, you check it twice daily and you don't have to say when those times are if if that is one of your concerns. But just just know that if you do include times in there, people are going to expect a response. That's just it's just how it is. Make sure you're also are you're harnessing email tools that are out there. There's plenty of them out there. But regardless of the tools you use, prioritize the emails. So you're going to triage them. Kind of like you would triage patients at an emergency room, also create filters. There's a lot of cool filters that you can use, a lot of things you can use when it comes to creating filters to help you get emails to where they need to be. And then, gosh, get rid of all the notifications, get rid of your desktop notifications, get rid of your phone notifications.

Speaker 2 (00:08:59) - They're an absolute killer. They're going to give people heart attacks. They're just awful, terrible for mental health. Something else to consider is that if your email response or if the or if an email you're drafting, if it takes longer than or if if it's longer than a sentence, you may want to consider just giving the person a phone call. Because the issue is if you send that, there's my guess is if you send especially, you know, a one sentence or two sentence email, there's gonna be a lot of questions that they're going to have. And one especially the longer emails, it takes a really long time to draft some of these emails because you want to be as detailed as possible. Just freaking pick up the phone and call them. Just pick up the phone and call them. It is it is a lot easier. But the bigger problem is that you have a lot of context that you lose when you send something in. Just text the so if you want to convey a certain message, pick up the phone and call the person.

Speaker 2 (00:09:53) - I understand as lawyers, we want to get a lot of things in writing. I understand that. And if you have a valid reason for doing that, definitely, by all means, get it in writing. So I'm not saying that, but you do want to convey a certain message a certain way, pick up the phone and call as opposed to sending the email. It can save you a bunch of time because instead of you sending emails back and forth to convey that message to them. All right. So I do want to wrap things up. I want to remind you as well, the the intention here isn't merely about enhanced productivity. It's really not. It's really that conscious effort to prioritize our mental health and our holistic well-being being okay. It's it's really about that. Productivity is one of those benefits of it as well, but it's really about the mental health aspect. And so keep a focus on that. Remember, if there is something specific you want me to cover on the show, just shoot me a text 314 501 9260.

Speaker 2 (00:10:48) - You want to get stage one, Just take stage one to that same number. As always, make sure you stay tuned for our next episode. Until then, remember that imperfect action will always eclipse perfect in. Take care.

Speaker 1 (00:11:02) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.