Cleaning out the clutter

I know this sound like another “simplify!”, “get rid of your crap!”, “less is more!” post, but I promise it’s not. Not in the same sense, at least. I’m focusing this week on clearing out the cutter, but not in the physical sense. I’m talking the mundane, everyday stuff you do, but could do without. I’m talking about those tasks I do, without fail, on a daily basis that aren’t really that important whether it’s to feel busy, our of distraction or to procrastinate doing the really important work. I’m talking about the email that goes to my phone that I check 10+ times a day or the email that’s open in my browser all day, distracting me.

At the end of each day, if you would ask me what I did that day, what would I say? “I was super busy all day, I checked emails all day, I did some design work, packed up orders, and other little day to day tasks”. Pretty much everyday. I can promise I spent half my day doing things that weren’t that important, like starting to write an email then having a thought and getting lost in google for 20 minutes.

My plan is to check email twice a day. Take email off my phone completely (it can wait, promise). Have a notepad where I can jot down ideas/reminders so I don’t feel the need to CTRL+T (open a new tab) and put it there to remind me (aka distract me) later on.

I could call it time management. I could call it productivity. I’m going to call it cleaning out the clutter and only tackling the important tasks because doing things like checking my email five times a day for just five minutes? 9125 minutes per year. That’s 6.3 days a year. And I spend way more time than that in email and doing other irrelevant things to waste time. I’d rather go to Hawaii.

P.S. Yes, I failed “Blog Everyday in May”. While I loved the idea at the beginning, I ended up feeling like I had to blog about stuff I didn’t care about so I’m back to blogging as regularly as I can, but only about what’s on my mind.