On obsessing over email and twitter

Standard

It’s amazing how deep I can get into checking email over and over, not to mention refreshing my Twitter client. The deadly thing about Twitter is that it contains links. Many, many links of tremendous interest, and before I know it, an hour has passed.

With emails, it’s more complicated, but there are some things I need to respond to right away and I feel guilty about waiting. These are not good choices.

Anyway I did a little test: I promised myself I would do 300 words before I checked email again. I turned off my wifi, wrote 500 words instead, then got back online.

No emails had come in. On Twitter, I had 11 new tweets, two as part of a conversation I was having. It took me all of three minutes to get through them, and I was ready for another 500 words.

In this way, empires are built.