In this interview with Brandon & Thomas of Staying Power, David was asked, “How do you fight the urge to check email?” Constantly checking email can be an addiction that gives you an adrenaline rush that soon plummets when there is no payoff.
Stop hijacking your own agenda. Set a timer and commit to sprints to get the work done.
– David Wood
David reveals:
- Why your brain likes the dopamine hit.
- Are you deliberately creating drama and stress?
- What you can do to get the same adrenaline rush, without sacrificing your productivity.
- How to move the needle in your business.
Do a deal with your mind. Set a timer, do 25-minute sprints to double your productivity, then reward yourself.
– David Wood
To find out more about Brandon & Thomas of Staying Power, go to https://www.stayingpowercollective.com/ and watch the FULL INTERVIEW here.
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– Video Transcript –
Brandon Hall: [00:00:00] How do you fight the urge to check your email? Because for me, it’s almost like it’s almost like an addiction, like a weird habitual addiction where I’ve got to go get a dope, hit every five minutes to just see what the note of, I mean, I’m not even answering my email. I like, I have an executive assistant thank goodness who does a great job of like organizing my inbox.
But even then I still find myself like checking, just looking, how do you fight the urge?
David Wood: [00:00:32] Well you said the magic word.
Brandon Hall: [00:00:36] If you don’t mind. I want Tom to jump in too, cause I know that we’ve talked about this and
Thomas Castelli: [00:00:40] yeah, one of the things is too, like I’ve tried waking up early to do it, but then I still feel the need to check my email.
As soon as I wake up, like today I checked my email before I even got out of bed. I just, I needed to, I felt the need. And then. And then there’s something, it was worse when I don’t check it and everything’s calm and peaceful. I feel like there’s something wrong. Like, unless I’m feeling like the constant, like, whew, like, you know, like whiplash of like pain.
Like I feel like there’s not something right. Like I need the pain to be there, to feel okay. If that makes any sense.
David Wood: [00:01:10] Wow. Yeah. So you guys,
Brandon Hall: [00:01:13] I have one more thing, David. Cause, cause we really need your advice here. To elaborate on Tom. I get like this. It’s like, it can almost be physical, like your pulse races a little bit.
You’ve got this like, kind of, almost like a burning sort of sensation in your stomach or chest. Maybe not burning. It’s hard to describe, but like my, my I’ll be like going, I have to check my email. How do you avoid that?
David Wood: [00:01:39] So addiction’s the right word. And we’re always looking to change our state. And when we check email or check a text message or whatever, we do get a little dopamine hit.
And when we try and multitask, I believe that what we’re doing is we’re generating more adrenaline because we’re trying to, you know, handle the emails and then we’ll take this phone call and then we do that. Then the kid knocks at the door and then you know, they say, Oh, I forgot to buy that thing on Amazon.
Let me just get that done. Here’s the question. Do you want entertainment or do you want results? Hmm. That’s what you need to decide. It’s entertaining to just flow and check email and respond and look, I’m a legend. Look, I’m getting all this stuff done. I may not be moving the needle in my business. I may not be doubling my revenue.
I may not be leveraging so I can double my time off, but I’m feeling really productive. Right? So you guys are ahead of the game. Because you’ve spotted it. You know it, a lot of listeners may not realize that they’re running on, they’re running on adrenaline and they’d deliberately or subconsciously creating drama and stress yesterday.
I was feeling pretty worn out at about three o’clock in the afternoon, and I made the mistake of opening my email. That was a terrible time to do it. I was burned out. And I’m like, Oh, I’ll just check through email or whatever. And then I found out someone had made a big mistake. Now I’m feeling lousy. I sent a message that wasn’t that kind to someone.
It was just a terrible time. So I have the addiction too. I might go through to five o’clock when three o’clock was the time to stop, at least for a meditation. One way that I combat it is because I’ve realized through trial and error, that email will hijack my agenda. I cannot open the email and just be very selective.
I have to go through and complete it. So one game you could play is, I will do this thing first and you can set a container for it. That’s the way you do a deal with your mind. I will do this sprint. I’ve got one hour. I’ll do two 25 minute sprints, five minute break in the mail. Well, I set my timer. Hey, Siri set timer 25 minutes, and then I’ve got the task in front of me.
I actually moved it on my board over to now, and only one thing is allowed in that column. And while that thing is on my board in the now column, I’m not allowed to touch anything else, but it’s only 25 minutes. So I’m okay with it. Right. There’s a container. I’ve done a deal with myself to twenty-five minutes sprint.
I have a five minute break. I’ll do another 25 minutes sprint, knock off this thing. That’s going to help me in my business. And as a reward, I get to check email.
Brandon Hall: [00:04:33] But you don’t check email during that five minute break.
David Wood: [00:04:36] I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. I think it’s going to derail you. It’s going to hijack your agenda.
