… broke the email rule. Again.

 

Every advice-giving blogger and/or efficiency expert on Earth says the same thing about how much you should check your email during the day: Do it less often.

Two, three, five times a day. Whatever the specifics, the idea is that you’ll be much more productive if you limit the distraction that is email.

I ignore that advice – I check email all the time.

In between thoughts, in between phone calls, in between writing. Sometimes, I even check email in between responding to email.

Two reasons why:

#1. I’m not in the efficiency business.

I get paid to write quality content, give clients good advice, and develop useful products. None of those things are highly correlated with time or even effort.

#2. Email is fun.

It’s my social time, my office water cooler. After all, I sit alone in an office all day long; distraction is not exactly high on my list of problems that need solving.

So, should you copy what I’m doing? Not necessarily, and that’s the point.

Listen to the “experts,” but make your own rules. Isn’t that a big part of why you decided to work for yourself in the first place?