F·13
Focus & Deep Work
Three Times a Day, Not Thirty
Checking email on a schedule rather than continuously measurably lowers daily stress.
- Evidence
- solid
- Topic
- Focus
- Things to do
- 3
- Read
- 1 min
solidHow strong is the evidence?
Good evidence behind it, but fewer people have checked it independently.
- Kushlev & Dunn, Computers in Human Behavior, 2015 — two weeks limited to three checks a day
Why it works
The cost is not the reading, it is the readiness. A mailbox that might contain something keeps part of you on call all day; a schedule ends the readiness without ending the responsiveness.
What to do about it
- Pick three times and close the client between them. Leaving it open defeats the entire mechanism.
- Tell the two or three people who genuinely need faster to call instead. Then they can, and everyone else waits.
- Never open it first thing. That single check sets the shape of the whole day.
Where people go wrong
Turning off notifications but leaving the tab open. You will check it more often than the notifications would have.
Read next
- Reframe, Don't SuppressReinterpreting a situation reduces the emotion at low cost. Suppressing the expression leaves the emotion intact and adds physiological and memory costs.proven
- Stress Is Enhancing, If You Believe It IsBelieving that stress improves performance changes the physiological response and the outcome.solid
- Attention ResiduePart of your attention stays on the previous task — unless you left it with a written plan for resuming.solid
- The Phone Doesn't Have to BuzzA smartphone within reach reduces available working memory even when it is face-down, silent and switched off.solid