New Ritual: A Week Without Email
How checking email less changes what you focus on
"Last week, I experimented with a 'week without email.'
For years, I've minimized email dependency – no email on my phone, etc. but I wanted to push further. Could I check email only as a scheduled task, rather than a default activity?
My Goal: Resetting My Relationship with Email
My goal is to stop using my inbox as a default – meaning I don’t want to have to *think* about my inbox as something that I should immediately go to for me to know what to do or work on that day.
I’m a major fan of the 80/20 Principle book, and I try and focus on *what* over *how* or even *when.* Email should be, in this world, more of an afterthought, or more like my mailbox – something you go check, process and then shut for a bit.
What an inbox is used for:
Sending documents
Introductions
Scheduling
Messages that are like snail mail.
Newsletter subscriptions.
Rethinking the purpose of my Inbox:
Sending documents – This can be done directly in drive or in other apps like Notion. You can message people through a document via drive when you share, and you can comment on docs.
Introductions – Mostly needs an “awesome thanks!” and then to be scheduled by my VA.
Scheduling – Can be handled by my VA
Messages that are like snail mail – I always want to write, but I want to not feel urgency about when to respond.
Newsletter subscriptions – I can unsubscribe from all newsletters and resubscribe through a Newsleter only email.
So, all in all, there’s really not much at all for me to look at when checking my inbox. To get started I put up an auto-responder and trained my VA on how to process my inbox, which includes her texting me with anything urgent, and leaving longform messages that need my reply unread for me to answer at my own convenient time as a batch.
Autoresponder setup:
Hey there!
I currently checking this email ~1-2x a week, but my assistant, Emily, keeps a close eye on this inbox handling scheduling, bills, etc.
Current Clients: For scheduling changes, email Emily directly at ____or feel free to text me if it's urgent! Billing. She will also handle billing/invoicing.
New Clients Intros: Once you submit a client application, we will see and review review it and shortly be in touch with you about booking an intro call.
Messages to Friends & Collaborators: I love getting your messages and will get back to your mail when I can!
Thank you for understanding and thank you for being here!
Ultimately I ended up feeling weird about having this up. I felt like it might have made me seem weird or preachy so I just took the autoresponder down and just have my VA help watch my inbox.
Results and Reflections:
Overall I do feel that I met my goal, which was to check email less. I probably checked my email 1-4x per day still, but I’m still adjusting to this new ritual.
We unsubscribed from TONS of email and my inbox is consistently basically at zero, minus 1-3 items for me to reply to that are long-form.
I am continuing with this process moving forward, so that says something. Again what I really want to watch for is how not checking email changes what I do.
It’s not just about distraction, it’s about the adverse selection of priorities.
Question: What would you do if you couldn’t check your email/slack/social media at all this week?
What if you only checked your email 1x at the end of each day?
How would that impact what you select to work on for the day?
I know this isn’t possible for everyone but if you do have a VA you could all (probably) move to check your inbox 1-2x per day!
As always, let me know what you think!
xx David