Find 2 to10 Extra Hours Per Week With One Simple Action

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So how do you find 2-10 extra hours per week?

Stop obsessively checking email!

I am so guilty of this and would venture to say that my email habits prior to reading this book were costing me about 10 hours per week in completely wasted time.

Are You Checking Email Just to Feel Important?

The first point I’d like to talk about that has already made a huge impact on not only my work, but also my stress level and my life, is managing email. Ferriss says that for the last 4 years, he has only checked his email once per week on Mondays-“ that’s it!!

Though many of us believe that our businesses and our lives would fall apart if we weren’t to tend to our email constantly, Ferriss says that this simply isn’t true. In fact, he says that his business became more profitable once he removed himself as a bottleneck!

He calls email an enormous time waster a task that we engage in that keeps us busy but that often is completely unproductive.

And here’s where it really gets uncomfortably true…

He basically says that those of us (including his former self) who constantly engage in time-wasting unproductive activities for the sake of keeping busy are doing this to gain some sense of false importance. Ouch. But so true.

He doesn’t recommend that you go from serial email checker to once per week right away. Instead, he recommends shutting down email and checking it once at noon and once again at 4:00.

Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong!

David read this book while he was on vacation a month ago and limiting email checking was his first action toward a 4 hour work week. David and I are both self-proclaimed email addicts. Before reading the 4 Hour Work Week, we were serial email checkers and instant responders.

This was the first action that both of us attempted to implement and promptly failed. We’re getting better though and constantly trying new to eliminate the unnecessary burden of email that is holding back our lives for no good reason. There were several problems that sucked us right back in to being email addicts:

Pretend problem #1

The first problem was the fear of missing something. After shutting down Outlook for several hours at a time, I realized that I wasn’t missing anything critical. But for some reason, I started shutting it down less and less, until it was open all the time once again.

Pretend problem #2

Then a technical problem: how do you SEND an email to someone without opening your email and getting caught up in your inbox? David’s solution was to open a separate email account for sending emails only. My solution will be to continue sending all of my email to Outlook, setting email to delete from my web based email upon delivery to Outlook, and sending email only through web mail. This way, even if someone replies to me, I won’t see it until I check Outlook at my predetermined times.

How Email Can Destroy Productivity

This weekend I shut down Outlook all day Saturday and checked it once on Sunday. When I did open it, 200+ emails poured in, 63 of which landed in my inbox and the rest in junk. Handling those emails took me about 25 minutes. However, if I had responded to them as they rolled in, they would have cost me so much more time it is almost inconceivable.

Though each email may only take seconds or a minute to deal with, the cost of stopping what you are doing, losing focus, allowing stress into your life, and changing your train of thought to reply can set you back an immeasurable amount of time and cause a project you’re working on to take multiple times longer than it needs to.

Share Your Experience!

Are you an email addict? Have you overcome an email addiction? If so, how has it changed your life? Have you read The 4 Hour Work Week?

22 Responses

jameshigham writes:

August 27th, 2007 at 10:35 am

Yes, this is the central theme of what I’m teaching clients over here. Glad to see someone else has burst into print with it too.

Systema writes:

August 27th, 2007 at 11:11 am

I just purchased that book but haven’t started reading it yet. Sounds like I need to get started asap!

erin writes:

August 27th, 2007 at 11:18 am

i have not read this book (although it is on my list; it sounds like it could really help those of us working from home). email is ridiculous. i catch myself looking to see if the number in my inbox has changed in the last minute or two. i’ve started trying to check it once in the morning and a couple of times in the afternoon. it’s amazing how much more i get done when it’s not open. however, knowing this, why is it still so difficult to convince myself that i need to shut it down for hours each day? if i know i’ll get to scratch things off my ever-growing list without being logged on to email, why don’t i automatically do this every day? it’s still hard and some days it doesn’t happen. we need a 12-step program:)

Ayat writes:

August 27th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

Limit e-mail. Seems inconceivable! This book is on my list to read; so maybe if I limit e-mail I’ll have “time” to read it )? But seriously, don’t you think that checking e-mail frequently can work if you’ve established a routine of skimming through and responding to messages quickly? I’d imagine that it would be a more tedious process if I had 60 + messages in my inbox that I had to sift through only twice a day!

Noah writes:

August 27th, 2007 at 12:45 pm

Awesome Book. I love it! Batching is definitely a way to compound things into a small block to increase efficiency and reduce work for works sake!

Christine writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 12:50 am

That’s great to hear James. Congrats for being onto this smart idea before most of the rest of us!

Christine writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 12:52 am

You are going to love it Systema! Keep us posted on how it changes your business and your life.

Christine writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 12:54 am

I don’t get it either Erin!! The first time I decided to close Outlook, I literally sat with my mouse over the “x” button for several seconds contemplating whether or not I should really go through with it. Now that I am turning it off, I’m finding that there are no emergencies and though I still feel like I am doing something wrong – I’m getting so much more accomplished!

Christine writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 12:58 am

I felt the SAME way Ayat. In fact I wrote a blog post about email that was completely contrary to this just a few months ago… I suppose that the amount of email you get and more importantly the potential of that email to take you away from your focus does matter. You’ve GOT to read this book… it may make you see things in a different light… at least it did for me!

Christine writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 1:00 am

So true Noah! I can’t wait to go through the rest of my life and see what else I can batch even more! I thought I was pretty good at this, but Ferriss is a Master! I’m learning so much from this guy….

Joshua writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 1:12 am

Excellent book. The email tips are great!

I find that there are so many things you can implement from the book, without going through the whole process of DEAL.

Not that you shouldn’t go through it, but there has got to be at least one thing every single person can learn from Tim!

Christine writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 1:17 am

Absolutely Joshua – I think everyone could learn something from Tim – I feel so incredibly fortunate to have already make the break from the 9-5 before reading this. If I had read this while in cubicle land I think I would have had a very early midlife crisis.

Wizzer writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 4:52 am

Hi Christine, just back from my holiday and catching up with blog posts etc. Binned most automatically (not yours though ) AND want to thank you for my copy of the 4 Hour Week which I received this morning. Really looking forward to reading it, particularly after reading your thoughts on it here.
I’ll let you know when I’ve written my review. Thanks again.

Ayat writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 5:31 am

I guess I have to try it and see. do you recommend a get the book before going cold turkey on e-mail?

jameshigham writes:

August 28th, 2007 at 8:38 am

Christine, my reply to this is here:
http://nourishingobscurity.blogspot.com/2007/08/
scheduling-breaks-life-or-death.html
James

Mary McKitrick writes:

October 2nd, 2007 at 9:48 am

I’ve requested the 4-Hour Work Week via inter-library loan.

For me email isn’t the big problem – and since ALL my work as a freelance voice talent comes through email from producers who want the work yesterday, it would be highly inadvisable to ignore that inbox. But the computer offers a heck of a lot of other time-wasting opportunities (um – like this one – gotta go!)!!

Ayat writes:

October 2nd, 2007 at 10:52 am

I think the idea isn’t ignoring the inbox altogether, but rather limit the times that you check in order to capitalize on other pressing items. If you check your e-mail lets say 4 times a day, I’m sure you’ll be able to catch any messages that producers send out to you, etc. And commenting on this blog is not a waste of time Mary. By contributing and participating you are introducing yourself to an entire new slew of people. That exposure is very important especially in your line of business. Participating in blog discussions and forums is a type of social media networking, and every business should consider taking part in order to give their insights, gain exposure, and establish brand awareness.

Mark (Wizzer) writes:

October 2nd, 2007 at 11:35 am

You are absolutely right Ayat – not only do you gain expose for yourself and business but you meet some great people with other reference points and experience that can REALLY help you move forward. For example, I’ve found much of Christine’s writing to be so inspiring and it has motivated me to move out of a comfort zone and get some things done I’d been putting off for ages.
The important factor is to take in what you read and act on it if appropriate, not just use blogs as an excuse to leave a worthless comment in the hope to get an extra visitor or two.

Mary McKitrick writes:

October 2nd, 2007 at 12:25 pm

Ayat, thanks – of course you’re right – there are great benefits, as you say. Mark, I truly do find it a challenge to limit internet time and although I was not entirely serious – Christine’s blog is very informative indeed and has led me to some other great blogs – one really has to learn where to draw the line – at least, I do.

Mark (Wizzer) writes:

October 2nd, 2007 at 12:39 pm

Mary, I’m with you on that. I use Bloglines and have 2000 unread feeds – and they’re from blogs that I subscribed to because I find the content useful! Pre internet I had the same problem with articles etc. I’d save the magazine / paper but would never get round to reading it! The answer is to be totally ruthless – only subscribe to the really best and ignore everything else.