How to Break the Email Checking Addiction Forever

I recently did a soft-launch of my new book and, as you may have guessed, was as excited as all get out to get some feedback.

Some time ago, I setup a separate email address to handle the more “transactional” emails I get so they wouldn’t be mixed up with the awesome personal emails ya’ll send me.

Well, maybe you can see where this is going. Of course, I setup all of these accounts on my phone and let it do it’s “checking for new emails” thing every 6 hours. Handy connectivity right there in my pocket – yay!

*sigh* You know those days when you just don’t get a single email and it’s just… a little sad! I had one of those days not too long ago and I swear I checked my email every 30 minutes – all day long.

Trial and Error Made More Error

What a waste of time and emotional energy! I remember getting hit by a little chunk of disappointment each time I checked. You can imagine where I was by the end of the day. Worn out.

I tried changing the frequency of checking to 12 hours, but I kept coming back and doing a manual check. I would rationalize checking when I was walking away from my desk, because you know I was just wasting time walking. Might as well make it useful.

I just came up with every reason possible to hit “Check Mail” on my phone. It was really pretty sad.

What Finally Worked?

A flash of insight smacked me dead in the middle of a thought. “Delete the account from your phone.”

Without giving my eternally-ready-to-rationalize-anything left-brain time to stop me, I opened up the K-9 email app, hit “Remove Account,” and immediately sighed in relief.

That was the amazing part. I actually felt like a bag of rocks was thrown off my shoulders. Seriously. It was an amazing feeling and I am so glad I did it.

Harness the Power of Laziness

That was the key point in breaking this relatively small habit. Making it just a little harder to do. Not having the easy option to check, makes it much more difficult to check. So much more difficult, I don’t even consider it an option.

I now check once a day during my dedicated richardstep.com time late at night via Outlook. No muss no fuss. I have an insanely crazy password and I really don’t like typing on my phone so there is a big hurdle to checking.

For these types of small habits, if you make it just a little bit harder to do them, you’ll find you’ll eventually lose all motivation to continue trying to do them.

It’s a wonderful thing. Using laziness to your own advantage.
I guess two negatives really do make a positive.

Have any small habits you’ve destroyed with a kick-butt tactic? Share it in the comments, please!