You Should Forget About Push Notifications for Your Email [Productivity]

Two weeks ago, the popular Mac-only desktop email client Sparrow released the iPhone app, and it is really, really good. It does, however, have one catch: It doesn't (yet) support push notifications. To that I say: Who cares?

You may have a job where email is the primary form of communication and you need to respond to every email the instant it arrives. If that's your job, I'm sorry. This post may not be for you.

For most of us, instant email back-and-forth is not nearly as important as we make it out to be. Yes, email is where a lot of our most important communication happens. But most email isn't something that requires you to drop everything the moment something new pops into your inbox. That you think so is an indication that email is probably screwing up a lot of your day.

Despite having heard countless times that multitasking is a myth, you may consider yourself a master multitasker. Okay, fine. But believe me when I tell you: the vibrating pulse in your pocket indicating the arrival of a new email; the unpredictable "ding" from your desktop's email notification; these things are killing your focus and destroying your ability to work to your capacity.

Stop worrying whether your pocket buzzes the instant a new email arrives. You shouldn't let it do this anyway. Check your email in batches. Schedule in your email time. Do it as often as your job requires. Once an hour is probably more than enough for most of us. Better yet, make it twice a day if possible. Respond thoughtfully, when your time and energy is focused specifically on checking and answering email.

If that sort of schedule is a problem, you may want to consider a new hierarchy for your communication. At Lifehacker, email between staff is relegated primarily to non-urgent communication. By non-urgent, I mean communication that everyone is expected to read (and if necessary, respond to) at some point during the day. For urgent group matters, we have a group chat room. For urgent individual matters, we have IM, or even SMS.

This hierarchy of communication is important. Yes, it requires people at your work to adopt and use the hierarchy. But it's worth it.

As for push email? Turn it off. Your sanity (and battery) will thank you.

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A few items of note about things at Unclutterer:

Unclutterer is now on Pinterest. You can find our pinned items at http://pinterest.com/unclutterer/. If you’re not a member, you don’t have to join to see the images and inspiration we find from around the web. We usually add a few pictures a day that run the full gamut of uncluttering and organizing styles.
If you go to our homepage to read our content, you may have noticed a permanent advertisement for The Six O’Clock Scramble on our page. We are such fans of the service and how it helps to reduce stress in the kitchen that we have decided to become an affiliate of the service. Don’t feel obligated to subscribe to the Six O’Clock Scramble grocery list and recipe emails, but if you want to subscribe, we would love for you to click on the link from our site. Doing so helps us to pay our bills and keep Unclutterer available to you for free. Plus, as I’ve written before, we really do find the service to be wonderful, and working with their company has been a delight.

Speaking of our homepage, you also may have noticed that there is no longer a link to our posts on Real Simple Magazine’s website RealSimple.com. After four years of writing for this publication, I decided it was time for me to step away from being a regular contributor. I still might publish with them occasionally, but I’m no longer under contract to work exclusively with them. As a result, stay tuned for Unclutterer advice in other publications — but always, of course, here on Unclutterer.com.This last item isn’t about uncluttering and organizing, but is about Unclutterer’s continued charity support of relief efforts in Haiti. We are committed to helping the people of Haiti get clean water, medical treatment, and other services they so desperately need. We would love it if you could join us in supporting those in need through Partners in Health (or a similar organization of your choosing), or simply learning about the dire conditions most Haitians have been experiencing since the devastating earthquake in 2010: “An Urgent Message from Dr. Paul Farmer.”