MUSINGS and other writing by Mark Kolke

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NO E-MAIL ON MY PHONE

 

Saturday, June 25, 2022

Remember when we waited for something to arrive in the mail, when we would check to see if the mailman had brought the letter we were expecting, the cheque we needed or for the unexpected?

Times have changed so substantially; in the last thirty years, they have been remarkable – we communicate in an instant and reply an instant later. We all experience some degree of FOMO (fear of missing out) and sometimes go down a Tweeting-rabbit hole.

We still get the unexpected. We get the shock or the laugh but don’t get it from a hand-delivered bundle five days a week; we get it in nano-seconds 24/7.

Everyone appreciates how the speed of communications is critical to how the world works today, and everywhere we go, we are in touch via so many devices. Most of us have a ‘5-computers in 1’ phone. Mine is the iPhone, but it seems not to matter which kind we have. We easily and quickly become slaves to it – unless we do something about it, which I’ve done in an unintentional way with a happy result.

I made a change recently. At first, it was a problem to fix; I had log-in trouble accessing my email from my phone. The solution was to change many passwords on several devices, and I was too busy that day, so it went into the ‘when I get time mental list’ of to-do items. So, after two days of weirdness, I started to get used to that change. It didn’t matter when I was at home or office because I could access my emails via desktop and laptop computers. It only mattered when I was out and about, but when I was, I was full of anxiety.

Until I wasn’t.

That took a few weeks, and now I’ve grown accustomed to it being a solution more than it ever was a problem.

If I’m away from home or out of the office for a few hours, my anxiety level rises – but it’s much like the now obsolete process of rushing home to see if anything came in the mail today.

The by-product of this has been better time management at home and office because I check my email less often. I reply promptly on urgent matters, but I’m not as panicked to do it immediately.

The time we spend is far less crucial to an organized life than the time we waste; there are so many opportunities to be systematic routine-focused robots on some parts of our day – a few minutes invested in better organization once and reviewed periodically is tiny compared to the return it generates of having hours and hours of expanded free-time, available time, because of the time freed up for other things like work, play, sleep …

But waiting was beneficial.

AND, I found I could focus on driving and making more calls because I wasn’t logging into email all the time worrying I’d miss out on something.

The follow-on from this, however, is a bigger deal by far – NOT checking emails as often from my desk. At first, hard, but after a while, I find that 4-times daily reminder on my calendar to check emails is enough of a prompt.

This is not to say I don’t go into my email more often to send messages, because I do – but in those cases, it’s for a specific purpose rather than to scroll/file/delete/reply etc. to too many things that don’t deserve my time right then, if at all, and they don’t deserve the distraction.

Reader feedback:


ATTA BOY 

Two words for you – good morning Mark – what I want to say to you this morning is ATTA BOY!, HM, Calgary, AB

I enjoyed todays Musing Mark. Thankyou, JJ, Calgary, AB

Atta boy, Mark!! 💜😊👩 🏼 👏👍 , SF, Lethbridge, AB

 


 


 
 

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