Scott Barstow

Removing My Email Fix

I am an email junkie.  I check my email probably 50 times a day at least, either on my phone or while working at my desk.  To paraphrase an old Chicago lyric “Email, you’re a hard habit to break.”  However, this week I have set about changing my habits.  I did the math on the interruptions around checking email and figured I am probably burning an hour or two each day in focused time by constantly checking mail or having it open on another monitor.

So, as an experiment, I did a couple of things:

• I turned off the automatic email sync on my iPhone (it felt like I was disconnecting oxygen as I did it).  To read email on my phone, I now have to launch the mail app and wait for it to download.  How 1994!
• I put times on my calendar to check email each day.  I check email three times during the work day:  First thing in the morning (to deal with stuff from my team that happened overnight), at or around noon, and then at the end of the day.  There are a few more at night, but I have tried to remain true to the discipline during the normal work day.

It has been really difficult to adjust, I won’t lie.  The glowing red circle on my iPhone was like a beacon calling to me.  ”Scott, someone needs your expertise right now!”  Without it, I have been a bit restless, wondering what I was missing.  It turns out that I am not missing much that can’t wait.  

The other difficulty has been the discipline of getting into Gmail and sending mail without reading all of my unread mail at the same time.  I could really use a different Gmail interface that sends mail only, and doesn’t show me my other mail.  

I also need to get better at processing my email when I am in there.  I need to be sending stuff that needs attention to Evernote so that I can work on it when I am focused, and not have to get back in to email to download that attachment or whatever.

I am now three days in, and I have to say it’s been kind of nice.  It’s not that I have noticed a 50% uptick in productivity or anything, but I have definitely tamed some of the tyranny of the urgent that I felt was overtaking me.  I have a feeling there will be further modifications as I tune what works and what doesn’t, but I am committed to seeing it through in some form.  

I don’t do well with making radical changes to bad habits, but rather by making slow changes and sticking with it.  I imagine most others are the same.

Question:  Have you ever modified your email habits with success?  What has worked for you, and what hasn’t?

My Favorite Tools, Part 1

A lot of people ask me what tools I use for particular parts of my work.  Here is a list of tools I use every day to help bring sanity to my work:

1. Evernote - I have been using Evernote for about a month and a half now.  I pay attention to Michael Hyatt, and he raves about it constantly.   I finally downloaded it and have been really digging it.  It is a great way to manage all of your stuff in one spot.  Michael is a hard-core user, storing literally everything that comes across his desk in Evernote.  I have not gotten to that level yet, but I use it all day every day.  The iPhone interface is fantastic, and great for capturing information while you are away from your desk.  Cost:Free
2. Goole Apps for Business - Like the rest of the planet, I use Gmail and Google Docs extensively.  I have moved completely away from any kind of desktop email client, even though lots of people swear by Apple Mail.  I still have the Microsoft Office suite for when I need to work with people that only use that, or if I have need of some special formatting that is not available in Google Docs.  I would say I do 90% of my traditional desktop publishing stuff in GDocs. Cost: Free
3. Balsamiq - A lot of my business involves coming up with wireframes for either web or mobile applications.  I started using Balsamiq about six or eight months ago after being frustrated with a number of other tools.  Balsamiq is the best wireframing tool I have ever used.  I can go very quickly, and with built-in export to PDF I can very easily share the wireframes with others.  I have told probably ten people about this tool, and all of them have thrown everything else out, just as I did.  Cost: $75 USD
4. Assembla - When I started the company I had no infrastructure of my own.  I needed a way to manage developers and source control across a number of different platforms and technologies.  I found Assembla a week or so in, and I absolutely love it.  It has everything I need to manage a development team across a number of projects, and has built-in support for SubVersion and Git.  The integration of checkins with tasks is seamless, and the project management has just the right amount of detail for me.  Assembla is the best of Trac and Redmine, all hosted by someone else.  There are some really nifty features for managing distributed software development, such as the StandUp report, that have really come in handy.  Cost: $49/mo USD  
5. Skype - I have moved almost all of my communication with my developers to Skype.  In spite of my hating the new Skype version for Mac because they screwed up the Chat History, I still use it all day every day.  Cost: Free 
6. iTunes - iTunes keeps me sane by keeping all of my great music right at my fingertips.  Cost: Your soul  

 These are the tools I use all day every day.  I hope the list introduced you to something new to investigate. I will have a follow on post with some of the more development-focused tools in the future.

What are your favorite tools?  Leave a comment in the Comments section by clicking the link at the top of this post.