Or Pavlovian responses, anyway. If you don't believe that those experiments with the dogs proved anything, just try to only look at your email 3 times a day. Almost everyone is conditioned these days - if a message pops up, you must answer it! Now! I ran into this on Monday. Yes, that was day 2 of mono-tasking.
I made my 3 goals. I did my morning email check. And then I ran into tasks that required me to dig through my email. And...I couldn't ignore the new messages! I couldn't just search for what I needed. The new messages were there, taunting me. Telling me that I was going to be perceived as a summer slacker if I didn't respond. So I told myself that I'd just respond the once to the messages that I had. But then, the sender was on their email and responded before I finished. And then the new quandary - they KNOW I'm on my computer - do I answer? Would it be rude not to? You see where this is going, right? Yes, I accomplished my goals, but I kept returning to my damned email. And a couple of times, I caught myself surfing as if I were truly at a designated time. But I did stop myself on that until I'd finished as much as I wanted to on a task (my Monday goals are a little longer term, but I still wanted to make progress on all of them).
How did I do yesterday? A bit better. I realized that even though I'd done things on Monday, I was definitely not as relaxed as I'd been on Thursday. Today I had 1 specific thing that I wanted to finish completely. It didn't require the internet, just powerpoint, so it was pretty easy to stick to the "no email, no surfing" rule in the morning. I finished the project without losing focus, which was nice. Then I felt slightly guilty when I checked my email at 1 to realize that someone had needed something at 9am (after I'd checked my email for the morning). Then I realized - I felt guilty for making someone wait 4 hours for my response. 4 hours. Clearly, I have issues.
But I have to say, that certain things are getting easier. I might have interspersed work with email (task switching) on Monday, but I'm getting pretty good at not trying to focus on 2 things at once. When I'm helping Ian practice piano, I'm really in the moment - not checking my email, surfing Facebook, or playing on my phone the way I used to do. This morning, I decided to start on my main task before I took Ian to swim camp then do yoga, then work on the task until it was finished. I managed to focus and meditate during yoga, but it was much harder than the mornings where I got out of bed and did it first thing. I was almost 15 minutes in before my mind stopped wandering back to my task in between wondering if trying to become more flexible, literally and figuratively, was wise.
So I'm still a work in progress and I'm sure it's going to get harder when things ramp up in the fall. I have found that, much like sitting in a Krispy Kreme shop with the "Hot Now" sign flashing, I have virtually no self control. So before you start thinking that I sound holier-than-thou about all this, please realize that my methods are akin to moving to a place where the nearest Krispy Kreme is at least an hour away (hi Emporia). I didn't check my phone while Ian played piano today because I had to leave it in another room - otherwise I'd look while he was tackling Take Me Out to the Ballgame for the 100th time. I open a different window of Safari and don't open my email accounts when I'm working on something else because I don't have the self control not to check if I just open another tab. I moved my email, FB, and Snapchat apps to the 3rd screen on my phone so they aren't taunting me with notifications every time I glance at my phone.
Now I just need to work on my email guilt. That might just be harder than limiting my checking...
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