#emailhack

When I need to send an email while in the middle of “deep work,” I often get pulled into my inbox and distracted by unread messages. For years, a solution escaped me. I’d find myself working on something important, go to send an email, and the next minute find myself perusing the school newsletter. To avoid this, I’ve started a simple habit: I always exit my email client with the “Drafts” tab…

Ever gone to search for an email to complete a task and then got sidetracked reading through your inbox?

It's an anti-pattern that I call distracting setup.

Distracting setup is any structure you have around you which generates distraction from what you are wanting to achieve.

On analysis I realised that the distracting setup was that my email client (Gmail) always defaulted to show me my inbox on opening.

The solution is just to have gmail open to an essentially blank page, then I could choose what to do from there. Ironically, this is the same logic behind Google's uncluttered google.com home page.

From a blank start page I could then choose what to do first; search emails, read inbox, read starred/todo items, check sent items. Basically I could get onto whatever task I came for without misdirection and distraction.

Gmail doesn't provide a blank start page so I figured out a simple solution.

1. Create a label called 'start'.

2. Jump to the folder and drag the link into my bookmarks toolbar.

3. Right click, edit and rename the bookmark to just say 'Gmail start'

BAM, now when I click to check my gmail I end up at my empty start folder and can then choose what next from there.

Go ahead, make your own little start page hack now!