Monday’s are always a great day to start out with a nice big cup of Motivation. We all need motivation and we all get motivated in different ways. I have really started to try and figure out where I am losing so much of my day. It seems that I am working late into the night and some days not logging many client hours, but I have literally spent all day in front of the computer. How can that be? How can I spend all day on the computer working and not log that many client hours? I started to write down anything and everything I did one day. And that is when I realized where my rabbit holes where.
EMAILS! The biggest rabbit hole I found.
Sometimes I checked my own email 30-40 times a day.. Yes can you believe that 30 or 40 times a day? I don’t even check client emails near that much. I was floored. So what do I feel like I need to check my own email that many times a day but not my clients? I don’t have the right answer for that question but I do have a solution.
First thing I did was asked myself a couple questions. Why do I feel that I need to look at emails every time I hear that little noise announcing I have a new emails? When do I feel it is so important to keep email open all day long?
Yes email is where all my clients send me my tasks, to do list, and where all my client communication is. Well almost all of it. The other half is skype, but that is a whole other can of worms I will be opening next week.
This week I have set myself on a very strict email schedule. I will open, read and reply to all emails first thing in the morning (7am). After that I will completely close my email and not open it again until after lunch (noon), when I will open, read and reply to all emails once again. And I will open, read and reply to all emails one last time before I stop working for the day (4pm). I am forcing myself to do this for one week to see if one it is do able, two if I gain much of my day back and three if this is truly my biggest rabbit hole.
Have you sat down and figured out where you biggest rabbit hole is? What sucks up most of your day and helps you not get near as much accomplished? Join me this week and lets see if we can climb our way back out of this email rabbit hole.
