Close Mail To Keep Focused
Productivity November 26th, 2006
This following tip is so simple and obvious, yet no one that I have talked to ever puts it into action.
I’m the type that has to check his email every time I hear it beep, I cannot leave it there sitting unread. It has to be read the second I receive it, otherwise it bugs me to the point that I end up checking it anyway. But what happens if I dont receive email..? Simple, I get work done.
When I’m trying to get work done the first thing I do is close my Mail application, This way I’m not getting bugged every few minutes with new mail to read. It’s such a simple tip but it works like a charm. Especially if you receive a high volume of email each day.
If you cant part with your Mail, set it to check every 15 minutes, instead of every minute. You’ll at least get some work done before been interrupted.
November 26th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
I’ve had to do the same for NewsFire as well. I like your suggestion for WriteRoom as well in a post from a while ago. That seems to keep me focused when writing
November 26th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Yeah, I close NewsFire & Mail.
November 26th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Nice tip.
I don’t get enough e-mail to be disturbed, so I can leave Mail on. Most of it is work-related.
Here’s another tip to help you concentrate. Use two feed readers. One for your work feeds, in Glenn’s case, his blog comments feed etc., and another for your “leisure” feeds, like digg, Flickr, your friends’ blogs and so on. It works very well for me. The two I use are Newsfire and Vienna.
November 26th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Yea iv actually just recently started doing this too and same with newfire (like stated below) and now even somtime i will log out of adium to really focus.
November 26th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Mail isn’t my down fall. It’s NewsFire, bouncing every 5 minutes. Plus when I’m working/writing I use writeroom and have a little music playing.
November 26th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
How many feeds are you subscribed to in Newsfire? I did a major clean up recently. This has lead to less digg posts from me, but also a lot less pressure and tension.
I really like Vienna, the Open Source feed reader. It’s less fast-paced, and somehow more controllable. I also love the built-in Webkit browser.
November 26th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Hi Glenn.
I run Desktop Manager and always have Mail open in its own space and run in widescreen using Letterbox.
I turn ALL the notification sounds off, and have my dock hidden so that I don’t see the “New Mail” count.
Then I can very quickly switch to it, on my terms, when I have a break. Or simply drop the mouse down to the dock to see how many new emails have come in.
For RSS, I use NetNewsWire and always have that closed when not using it - far too addictive!
November 26th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
@ Michael G.: Have you tried VirtueDesktops? I’ve used both it and Desktop Manager and I find Virtue to be far easier to use and prettier. Both are free and Open Source, so there’s no harm in trying out one or the other.
November 26th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
I’m subscribed to about 15 feeds, but I have it set to 5 minutes, and I like that when I’m working on writing posts, etc. But now I just close it because i hate seeing that little number of unread stuff.
Also I don’t have a registered version (can’t afford it) so I always get the ‘PURCHASE NOW’ thing.
November 26th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Why don’t you try out Vienna or (the less cool) NetNewsWire? They’re both nice. The only disadvantage is the feed refresh time, it’s under-capped at 30mins in Vienna and something similar in NNW.
Ha, I hated the feed count in the dock too. I even e-mailed David about it, asking if he could add an option to turn it off. He said there weren’t enough people who had requested that.
I heard from someone else that the most requested feature is syncing your Newsfire feeds with an online service like Google Reader. David has apparently said that he’s going to add that in the coming year.
November 26th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Here is a link to Vienna for those interested.
November 26th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
I use Vienna :P
I just like NewsFire better, and I don’t mind the little popup every once in awhile.
November 26th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Oh. You’re also limited to a certain number of feeds, right?
November 26th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
I believe so, but I don’t have that many feeds anyways.
November 26th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
Good tip. When I have work, such as finishing a website for somebody I close almost every “unnecessary” app - Adium, Mail, NetNewsWire and often iTunes as well. Sometimes I need silence to become productive :)
November 26th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
It’s the same with me. I can’t work efficiently with iTunes on, need my silence too.
November 27th, 2006 at 1:04 am
I love music when I’m working, something really loud to keep my mind awake, usually some trance/rave/techno. It’s just me.
November 27th, 2006 at 1:45 am
I’m a fan of those genres, but I find almost any music distracting when I’m trying to be productive.
What groups/artists do you listen to, Michael?
November 27th, 2006 at 2:03 am
Hehe,
I’m doing my school essays now. Until i got distracted by Newsfire.. and then Mail..
Oops.
Time to close them down i guess. Good tip Glenn.
Eric
November 27th, 2006 at 3:02 am
You can get a lot of productivity tips from these comments. Thanks for starting this great conversations Glenn!
Herkamer
November 27th, 2006 at 9:57 am
I used to use growl to help here except I had to many web site and growl really growl’ed
November 27th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Would you guys mind if I compiled your thoughts on this matter into a future blog post?
November 27th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
I wouldn’t. What about everyone else?
November 27th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
I thought I’d let everyone know that Glenn’s blog has just crossed the 1000 comments mark. We’re at 1001 atm.
Congratulations! That’s one heck of an achievement, Glenn.
November 27th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Yep, read this post for more on the milestone.
January 3rd, 2007 at 5:53 am
No offence, but isn’t that kind of obvious - I don’t think it constitutes a post lol.