I had meant to write a blog post every day this month, even though there were a few things going on like our anniversary, my husband’s birthday, and my birthday. Plus, we’re still progressing through the Bible in 90 Days reading schedule and that takes a good deal of time. Overall, I don’t think I did too poorly with my posting. This will be post #22 in 30 days.
The past few days, I’ve been too busy living life to have time to blog about it. I’ve come to the realization that I spent too much time online and need to control that. I’ve cut out a number of my blog subscriptions, unsubscribed from a ton of email newsletters, and only check Facebook once a day.
I think the biggest change, though, is how I’ve been handling my email. I love emailing with people, reading their responses, and staying up to date with friends. However, my email takes up so much time every day because it’s always open on my computer and I check it every time my email notification dings. Last week I read an article about how humans actually aren’t very good multi-taskers and how this relates to our use of email. The author suggested that we schedule a set time once or twice a day to check email. Deal with it at those times and only deal with it once. Read it and then delete it or reply. If you need to reply later because the response will take time, file it away but schedule a time to write a lengthy reply.
I must say, since I’ve started doing this, my email time has dropped dramatically. It’s so much easier to filter through junk mail once a day and delete/unsubscribe as necessary. It’s a bit harder to respond right away, as I have a tendency to read emails and then respond a week later. But my attempts to get my inbox down to 0 messages is forcing me to write more timely responses. I think this will make me a better time manager as well as a better friend.
Of course, I’ve only been implementing this new habit for the past five days. We’ll see how it pans out in the long term! But so far I’ve really been enjoy the newfound time. I’ve been using that time to catch up on some much overdue tasks, like organizing my recipe book and filtering through that never-ending pile of junk mail. Right now I only have two emails left in my inbox to respond to and that will happen tomorrow. The day is late and my brain is tiring. If I responded now, they would be less than satisfactory. Until tomorrow!
