Bioinformatics Zen

Receiving an email is a reward, of sorts. If someone takes the time to write to you, it's likely to be something interesting. Talking from experience, when things are going slowly, receiving email is the much needed distraction from the drudgery of slow progress. It's almost like your mind has been conditioned like a mouse in experiment - pushing the send/receive button to get another piece of cheese.

So how can you beat this debilitating affliction. Well, it's worth thinking about what you're expecting when you bash the send and receive button for the thirtieth time. There's never an email that's so life changing that it couldn't have waited for a few hours. Most of the emails I get are along the lines of when the centrifuges are going to be fixed. Obviously it's a big weight off my mind to know if I have an urgent need to spin something at 3000 rotations per minute, I'll be able to by Thursday afternoon, but it's not really worth breaking my trail of thought for. So here's a few things to try if you think you could do with checking you email less.

Turn off automatic email checking

This is the worst offender. You're in creative full flow, like a concert pianist, your hands are flying across the keyboard. You've almost single handedly solved all the world's socio-economic problems, then you get the latest chain email from Dave - and the spell is broken. But apparently if you forward the email to ten friends you'll meet the love of your life by the end of the day. Woo! Where's my address book?

Get a timer application, and use it

What I find that really helps is to work for about 40 minutes without checking email, websites RSS or anything. Just 40 minutes of me working on whatever I'm supposed to. Then I check my email, RSS, get some water, stretch. Then go back and do another 40 minutes. I use Minuteur for the Mac but I'm sure there are plenty of other timer apps out there.

Don't let email be the first thing you check in the morning

I know this really tempting, and a hard thing not to do. But if first thing in the morning is your most productive time, wouldn't it be great use time on something that's going to push your work forward? I try and get at least one thing done before I check RSS feeds, news articles, and of course, reply to email.

Use a system to deal with your email effectively

Not so much as a distraction but more for piece of mind. The worst thing about checking emails too regularly, is that nothing gets done about them. Once they're read, and the waiting-to-be-read highlight is gone, and its difficult to know which ones need to be dealt with. They're all jumbled together in the inbox, or organised into folders such as "lab", "talks", "home", and so forth However this doesn't identify the emails that require something to be done about. I recommend the inbox zero system. Two folders, one for emails that you need to do something about, and one that you're waiting for somebody else to do something about. Everything else gets deleted. I sort my inbox daily, based on these two criteria, and clear my todo folder every Friday. Easy.

And finally, sometimes it's just better to get away from distractions completely. I wrote this article in about two hours in coffee shop without any wireless. No email, websites, or RSS.