Email addiction I didn’t know I had
This might be just one angry rant type of post, but hopefully it can help someone in a similar situation to mine.
As I’ve posted here before, roughly three years ago I quit my full-time job to focus on taking care of my kids and household. I just had a realization that literally has me fuming. All these years after quitting, I continued one nasty habit that’s no longer needed: checking my email!
I check my email first thing in the morning, last thing before going to bed, and super frequently during the day, be it while driving, waiting in lines, etc. Just jumping into my email program on the phone! I’m almost infuriated at myself for realizing ONLY NOW, three years later, that there is absolutely zero reason for me to check my email this often. Why do I keep doing it?
Sure, I’m trading stocks, and I’m still coding and contributing to some open-source projects. Sure, I receive payments for some things, and I pay bills, and get notifications about all that. But do I need to handle all that communication immediately? NO!
If you have the privilege of avoiding the inbox, go for it! It might be as bad for you as social media. Probably not as bad, but the next best thing to eliminate from your life. Since I cut it out, I’ve been feeling much better and using my time more productively. Not as impressive a feat as it sounds, as I think watching grass grow is more productive than checking your email when you don’t need to.
The moment of realization
I’m still a bit shocked at how long it took me to arrive at this moment. It just feels so idiotic. What the f… man? I literally have received zero important emails since I quit full-time work that couldn’t have waited a day or more before I responded. It’s mostly nonsense and automated billing and whatnot. Yet here I am, like a rat, coming back for that “reward” of checking the inbox.
I can only be relieved that I had this realization now. Better late than never, as they say.
By the way, what made me realize this? Well, YouTube. Isn’t that ironic? At least it wasn’t some dummy YouTube short. It was actually a very long video by an experienced financial trader. He introduced ten principles for achieving financial success from a trader’s perspective. Most of the principles were directly tied to money or value in some way. But some were not directly tied to financial goals. And the one that gave me an “aha” moment was a section called “ditch your smartphone”.
Ditch your smart phone??
Initially, my reaction was the usual, “Oh yeah, it’s distracting, yeah, makes sense, but I won’t do that”. But as the conversation continued, the lines delivered were the brutal honesty I needed to hear. This little device that’s so important and prevalent in our lives… we never question its necessity anymore. Is it really that important?
If I had to give an analogy, I think for the majority of the time, this little miracle device is doing nothing but bringing trash right to my front door. Imagine someone physically walking up to your house with a bucket of trash, ready to throw it inside your house if you just open the door. And you happily open the doors to receive it!
Here is the link to the part in the video which talks about ditching the smart phone. The line that absolutely nailed it for me: “are you valuing your time … all the social media, programs, talking to people that you don’t really know about shit that doesn’t really matter” (paraphrasing a bit).
That part hit me like a cold shower. It’s true! Following people on Mastodon, Twitter, Instagram, reading Reddit, commenting on posts that comment about other posts and events that DO NOT MATTER, or have ZERO impact on you in the moment. And it’s the same with email. Reading shit that doesn’t matter.
Some service decides to start curating articles and send them to you as a “favor”. Oh look, we are a company and we found these 5 amazing articles that will improve your knowledge. Shut the fuck up. You just want to keep your name at the top of my mind when I think about your services, and you don’t give a shit about my knowledge.
All these curated lists, topics being discussed, it’s all shit. You can’t even unsubscribe from that crap; it will still reach you one way or another. The only way out is to leave. Leave your phone, and if you can’t, don’t use it to check email (and social media).
It’s not easy. The temptation, the habits are so deeply ingrained. Normal, regular life is quite boring and repetitive, so we go and look for these “sugar rush” hits. In the end, though, we overdo it and end up getting addicted.
My Progress on Ditching the Habit
I know that this is only the start. It’s very easy to be highly motivated in the beginning. It’s easy to say no to email in the first few days. But the habits come back if you’re not careful, and resistance disappears once the excitement of the realization dissipates.
It’s been almost exactly two weeks since I stopped checking my email first thing in the morning. It’s strictly forbidden. Instead, I grab a book and coffee, and go read in my hammock. I’m infuriated just writing this because for the past three years, I could have started every single one of my days like that, and instead, I chose to stare at the little device and read nonsense.
I’m not in the clear, and my current ability to skip checking is purely due to my anger. The anger will subside, and the temptation will grow. In the meantime, I have disabled the app on the phone (you can’t even uninstall it, ugh). I check email only on my PC, only once a day, after a workout. I think I want to work a bit more on switching to perhaps a twice-a-week checking schedule, but we’ll see. I’m still working out the details and what will suit me best.
I also started to leave my phone more and more at home. Grocery store trip? No phone. Taking kids to practices and whatnot? Nope, not doing it. Not bringing it along. I think the final solution will be getting a very dumbed-down version that can’t have any apps installed other than calling function and text, but I’m still working on those details.
