From once-daily (during my designated dial-up time after school) to casual-camper (having the email window open at all times in the high speed era), recently I have graduated further to completely-neurotic (having my browser/phone notify me whenever a new piece of mail arrives). Part of that, I rationalised, was my job as a web developer and a student politician before that. The other part was just a reflexive, unthinking drive to install gadgets that “increase” my “productivity.”

Since my workflow was wide open to interruptions, I found that I produced some of the best work late at night — when no one else was around to offer friendly interruptions. This was in third and fourth years in university when I pulled all-nighters to finish term papers. In fifth year, I had to pull all-nighters just to finish regularly assigned readings and homework.

The gospel I’m about to sing comes as no surprise (especially given the awful, double-quotation foreshadowing). Yeah. I’ve “quit” e-mail for the last month or so and I’m quite glad I didn’t wait any longer.

But what do I mean by “quitting e-mail”?

This is what it means:

I’ve also turned off the notifiers on my phone. Unless I’m desperate for some response, I check my e-mail only a few times throughout the day (personal e-mail: twice; work e-mail: four or six times). In essence, I initiate the action of checking e-mails, not the other way around.

Relatedly, I unsubscribe to a ton of mailing lists which were fast becoming a burden. Anything I haven’t read in detail or even opened the last three times I received it got an automatic boot, and some stuff which I felt were interesting but still a waste of my time were vetted out as well. My inbox now feels very minimalist.