Something that I keep running into in financial books and self-help books and also on a few websites is the idea of limiting the amount of time you spend checking email each day. Specifically the book I’m reading at this moment suggests limiting time spent on email to twice a day and then cut back to once a day if possible. So this morning at work I decided I was going to give it a shot. I don’t know if I’ve ever specifically stated on here what industry I work in but I work as a logistics manager in retail. Lately I’ve been finding that the amount of work expected from me is piling up and I lose the first couple of hours each morning just dealing with the “have-to” items of each day.
So this morning when I went into work I didn’t even check the store email at all. Recently the district manager has been chastising store managers for spending too much time in the office reading emails (that she sends out) and my boss typically relays anything specifically pertinent to my job by printing out the emails and putting it in my inbox. So I decided that I won’t waste my time anymore. I also decided to eliminate some extra work I was putting on my self each morning. They were small programs that I had started running that I felt helped the store out but were ultimately not my responsibility to be tackling.
By eliminating just these two areas I was able to cut about 20 minutes out of my morning workload. Ultimately I want to be getting my work done as efficiently as possible so I can then devote more of my brain power to thinking about things that I actually care about. And no, retail is definitely not something I care about. It’s just a job, a way of providing for my family until I can find some other means. It doesn’t matter that I’m actually pretty good at what I do and at most aspects of retail, that’s just further evidence that I’m smart enough to be doing something more worthwhile with my life.
So today I’ve seen some early successes of this plan at work. Now the real trick will be applying these principals at home. It’s one thing to willingly ignore corporate emails but I actually care about the content of my personal emails. It’s going to require more discipline I’m sure but I’m hopeful for positive results.