I deleted the mail app from my phone the other day, and I have barely touched my phone since. I’ve also removed the browser, which definitely is an integral part of this, but I honestly believe that the mail app was the main culprit.
A little backstory, I’ve been interested in “digital well-being” (I know it’s a stupid term but whatever), dumb phones, analog productivity, etc. for almost 8 years now. Honestly, it’s pretty embarrassing that I’m not living in a cabin in the woods with no internet. In all seriousness, though, it has been a struggle. I go through waves of little-to-no online time which inevitably cycles right back into full online brainless mode. I’m sure everyone does now. I’m not going to waste any time going over all of the things I’ve tried.
I love email, so throughout the 8 years I’ve been focusing on removing myself digitally, I’ve never gotten rid of it. It always seemed like something I couldn’t get addicted to. Well, here we are a few weeks later and I’ve realized that email has been a huge reason I’ve stayed attached for so long. I guess I never really thought that it was a bad habit, but then I stepped back and thought about my behavior when it comes to email. Here’s an example: I received an email from Cloudflare that they’re having some stupid AI conference, and I wanted to put a stop to that right away. I stopped whatever I was doing at the time to go and unsubscribe. I could basically never focus.
What really helped break this habit is thinking of email as if it was physical mail. It’d be absolutely insane to go check your mailbox every 5 or so minutes in case someone sent you something. The carrier hasn’t even come yet! So, in the same way, I try to have one or two “deliveries” each day. It gives me a nice little ritual of sorts. Yes, the benefit of email is that it’s basically instant, but that doesn’t mean I have to be there instantly to read it.
I’m sure most people treat email normally, but this has been a revelation for me so I thought I’d share it.