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I have a difficult relationship with my inbox.

 

Getting my first email address, one that was named after a fandom, felt like a key to the world of the internet. It allowed me to do so much and it let me stay in touch with friends. But since then, that key hasn’t opened doors; it’s locked me in.

 

Before we jump into my relationship with email, I want to set up a bit of scientific context. Specifically, I want to talk about B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning experiments. In these experiments, Skinner famously conditioned rats to learn that when they pressed a button food would be dispensed. But after the rats had learned to press the button, further experiments were done. The button was changed so that it didn’t dispense food every time it was pressed, but rather at irregular intervals. The result was that the rats pressed the button more frequently than when the food came at every push.

 

When it comes to social media and email we are like those rats. We’ve been conditioned to keep hitting refresh for a reward, in the form of likes, comments or contact, that may or may not come.

It became less about the content and more about a constant search for the next dopamine hit. I was playing a fruit machine but instead of a flush of cherries I was getting spam from companies I didn’t care about. I refreshed indiscriminately, in any moment of quiet or anxiety.

 

This wasn’t the world of romantic opportunity we hoped for in You’ve Got Mail. It wasn’t even the efficiency of communication that it had promised in our work. I was a full on email junkie.

 

I want to start breaking the habit, the addiction.

 

My first thought was to go cold turkey. I could probably have managed it for social media, but unlike the people you read about who are able to leave email behind (often because they have assistants or as part of their role as journalists) I’m not in a position to turn my back on email. I also realised that any break, even if I could get away for a week or two, would be temporary. You could sober me up but then as soon as I was back I’d be walking through a digital liquor store every day.

 

So instead of completely cutting myself off from my email, I decided to try to reshape my relationship with it. I wanted to take myself out of the operant conditioning chamber.

 

My first step was to remove the email apps from as many of my devices as I could. Everything personal is now done through the web. That puts one barrier between me and the fruit machine. It also means I get no notifications.

 

I’ve kept my work emails on my work laptop, because it’s part of what I’m paid for, and I’ve kept my work inbox on my phone. But where I’ve had to keep the apps I’ve turned off all notifications, including that little ticking red box that counts all of your unread emails, taunting you with them.

 

My next step was to set up a new address, one that was just for people.

 

This new, more professional email address, gave me two things. First, it brought me clarity. There was no spam, no more constant cycle of emails, no clutter. Second, it had a side benefit of giving me a digital channel I was proud to use to communicate with the world. I’m in the process of growing up online and this felt like finally stepping out of my school uniform.

 

The final step I took was choosing scheduled times to check my email.

 

Rather than checking whenever I felt the itch, whenever I had a moment of boredom, whenever I felt a glint of anxiety that could only be dulled by shine of a message to remind me I was here and in demand enough to be worthy.

 

Since making those changes, I’ve felt my relationship with my inbox become healthier. I’ve been less distracted. I’ve not missed anything important either. I don’t owe anyone an immediate response, and I don’t work in the burning building business so it can all wait until I’m ready.

 

It’s a change that’s still in progress. I’ve still not managed to fully kick the habit, and I’ve not even started on social media yet. But it’s all about those baby steps.

 

I’m not a mouse. I’m a woman and I choose the conditions of my own experiments.

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What feels like years ago, I wrote a little bit about my bullet journal. I’ve been keeping what I think loosely classes as a bullet journal for at least the last five years, but perhaps more. While I certainly have periods where I’m far more dedicated to it (usually when I’m feeling good) and periods where I let it slip (usually when I’m feeling overwhelmed leading to a dangerous spiral), it’s a method which is now deeply ingrained in how I process tasks. Because I’ve been writing daily and weekly to do lists for so long now, I’m pretty confident when I say I know how to write a good list. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve crystalised what makes a to do list work in to 5 key principles.

 

None of these principles alone are ground breaking. But if you apply them consistently and consciously they are pretty much guaranteed to work.

 

So without further ado here they are…

  1. Choose a medium you actually use

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of apps and journals that claim to be the perfect place for you to put your to do list. They sell themselves as being the perfect size, having the perfect paper, or being integrated with every other tool under the sun. What really matters is whether they’re something you’ll actually use. I’ve tried digital tools but they don’t really work for me, because I like a meditative moment with my list and to have it out on my desk while I work. But I have colleagues who have personalised online checklists they love. So look for what works for you, maybes try a few things out. Just don’t over complicate it or choose something so nice you can’t get it messy if you need to.

 

  1. Keep your list short

Any daily to do list should be around 7-10 items, if not fewer. The longer you make your list, the less likely you are to finish it and the more likely you are to feel downtrodden by how much you have to do. Personally I keep a longer weekly list that holds long term tasks and a suite of things I want to get done in the week, to make sure I keep on track of everything, but I keep my daily list short and sweet.

 

  1. Pick your priorities carefully

I like to highlight 3 things I have to get done in the day. I can only have 3. This keeps me focused and really forces me to be reasonable about what I can achieve. These 3 things can be big or small, but they’re the 3 that always get done. If you focus your day around those tasks, then everything else on your list becomes an added bonus.

 

  1. Break down your tasks

Big vague things like create newsletter can be hard to pin down and actually get done. Instead break down tasks into manageable chunks – I suggest nothing you can’t achieve in 45 minutes. So in the newsletter example it might be: write opening think piece, select and summarise articles, create illustrated header. When something is bite size it’s not too scary to take on (no more procrastinating a thing because it’s unachieveable) and it’s easy to know when you’re done.

 

  1. Track what you’ve achieved

The reason I come back time and again to my written to do list is the simple satisfaction of ticking something off my list. Tangible progress is what keeps you going with a to do list, and if you’ve followed step 1 – 4 you’ll be making progress through that list every day. It’s addictive, in a self-gamification way.

And that’s it. Like I said it’s not rocket science, but it’s something that it’s good to come back to when you’re feeling overwhelmed or like you’re holding yourself back. Good luck listing!

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I wrote in my newsletter a little while ago a mini thought piece on how we’re led to believe that to be professional is to be devoid of emotion, to be completely rational and how we’re shown offices are places not capable of containing any strong sensation, and definitely not tears. It was a few rough thoughts jotted down late on a Friday night, but it received such a strong reaction that I felt it was worth expanding upon, and shoring up with research, in a piece here.

Increasingly we’re being told that we need to find careers that fulfil our passions. Work is no longer just supposed to just be about providing the means to have a roof over your head and food on your plate. More specifically, we’re meant to find jobs that suit our specific preferences so well that can’t help but to make us happy, and there are endless guides to get us there.

That branding of the ideal job being one that makes us “happy” is the start of the limiting of emotions in the workplace. We need to be positive about our work, otherwise, foolishly and by our own volition, we’ve chosen a career that doesn’t suit us.

But even if we’ve found that one magical career that will bring us joy 40+ hours a week, often the vetting systems in place actively seek out those who can replace emotion with ‘logic’.

This vetting system is most easily seen in bids for the biggest jobs going, just think of every time the public was told a woman would be too emotional to be president or that a specific woman has modulated their emotions too hard and is thus too “cold” to wield power.

Elena Ferrante writes: “Even today, after a century of feminism, we can’t fully be ourselves”. She explains that not only is female power suffocated but also, for the sake of peace and quiet, “we suffocate ourselves.”

I don’t throw the term ‘toxic masculinity’ around willy nilly but this is it in action if I ever did see it. But displaying emotions at work isn’t just a women’s issue, although it is something more acutely and consciously felt by women. The idea that to be professional is to act in a masculine way and that to be masculine is to restrain one’s emotions is an issue for anyone who experiences a range emotions, which is pretty much all of us.

But we’ve gotten good at it, we’re good at balancing being just emotional enough to show we’re passionate about without being so passionate that it spills out of the prescribed shape of professional passion. In fact, many of us grew up training to do it curating our online selves to be palatable for likes, for financial gain, for potential employers to browse.

But I’m not sure this careful on stage management of our emotions in order to present as professional is good for anyone involved. As we’re asked to bring our whole selves to our jobs, to fail fast, to create personal brands outside of the office and be deeply invested in what we do inside of it, in a world where potential employers browse our social media as well as our CVs, where do we get to stop being on stage and be real? Even if that means being hurt or angry or frustrated?

I’m outwardly, usually, a very calm person but I feel, everything, very intensely. I’m learning to accept that this tendency to care isn’t a bad thing.

I care about what I do. I care about what I do during my day job. I care about what I make on an evening.

I care so much sometimes, heaven forbid, I show it.

In fact, I once even cried in the office because I cared so damn much, because what I was working on affected me. That was a personally terrifying moment, because I knew the invisible boundaries I was transgressing. While my, largely wonderful, colleagues didn’t let that specific moment phase them. I have also been asked to be cautious with the more emotional aspects of how my partner and I presented our research in the past and I’ve asked a number of times if I could “handle” my work after showing any moment of vulnerability.

A couple of months ago, after a lot of work in drafts and redrafts I lost a freelance job I was really excited about. It had felt like a perfect fit, a project I cared about in a style I loved, plus they reached out to me. But, in the end, they decided to go in a different direction. If I was being “a professional” about it all I would have just brushed it off. I would have cut my losses and been grateful for my cancellation fee. I would have rationalised their decision, leant from it, and put it into practice for the next job.

That’s not what I did because I was sad. It hurt. I was disappointed. I was frustrated.

That doesn’t make me any worse at what I do. Perhaps I shouldn’t have wallowed, but it’s part of life.

The idea that between the hours of 9 and 5 we shouldn’t feel, or show our feelings, is so bizarre. It’s genuinely mind boggling. We’re human all of the day not just when we’re at home.

But what does it mean to be emotional in a professional setting? While I without doubt stand alongside Jennifer Palmieri, the former head of communications for Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, in the belief that “it’s our world and we should be able to cry in it if we want to”. I want professional, and political decisions, to be made with an empathetic consideration of the facts at play. But how do we strike that new balance and importantly how do we open up our workplaces to human decision making?

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“It keeps me out of trouble.” That’s my standard response whenever someone brings up this blog or my creative side projects more generally.

It’s largely taken as a noncommittal shrug off, a way to accept the interest without having to justify what I make any further. After all, what trouble could I, a blue tick verified square, get into? A big night for me is a glass of wine and taking myself out to the movies.

But there is some truth in the idea that making keeps me out of trouble because making keeps me sitting with my own thoughts too long. If you’re busy you’ve got something other than you (in my case many) worries.

My break from (read reduction in) my creative work over January started to get me thinking about who I would be without the making. What would I do with my time if I just worked 9-5? What other interests would I have? What else would I prioritise? How would I define myself?

The desire to make things is a deep-seated part of my character. As a child, I would set myself holiday craft projects – lego and papermaché spinning music box anyone? I got more fun out of whatever repurposing packaging a gift came in than I did playing with the toy itself.

It’s a character trait that I amplify. It’s one I’m proud of because I’ve worked at it. It’s also that’s sort of come to eclipse the others because I’ve spent so much time on it.

That’s not a bad thing. But who wants to just be one thing? I’m not sure I do. I’m not sure I’m confident enough in that one thing to hang my hat on it either if I’m completely honest with you.

So who would I be without my making?

Well, first off, I guess, I would be defined by my day job. I’m a user researcher.

But that’s just more doing, just in a more corporate, codified, conspicuously accepted form.

So who would I really be without the making?

I’m not sure.

I’m sorry if that’s an anticlimax. But did you really think I was going to be able to define the essence of my character in just one little blog post? Psssh.

That said, I’m not going to leave you with a big ol’ question mark. Here are a few of the questions I’m currently trying to work my way through in the hopes that I’ll come to some sort of an answer of who I am, or at least who I think I’d like to be.

  • What are the qualities that keep you making? Are you ambitious or spontaneous or methodical or hardworking? Are you highly visual or tactile?
  • What are your best qualities? Are you bold? Are you kind? Are you stubborn?
  • What are your worst? Are you timid? Lazy? Is stubbornness your weakness rather than your strength? Why are those your worst traits, could they be your assets too?
  • What are the qualities your friends think are key to your character? Would they say you’re generous? Tough? Empathetic? Funny?
  • What do you value? Are you all about honesty or openness? Do you value things or experiences or relationships?
  • If you had to dedicate the rest of your time and leave all of your earthly possessions to a single entity or pursuit what would it be?

I’m sure there’s a lot to us all beyond those qualities too. But they’re a start. They’re a start to reframing yourself as valuable and overflowing with interesting qualities without having to make. That way when you do pick up your tools you’re doing it to make all of those quirks into something new, rather than making to stay out of trouble, out of your own mind.

 

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When you were little you could spend hours getting good at what every it was you were in love with doing that day. You would contort your fingers into witchy shapes and claws as you deafened the neighbours learning whatever instrument the school band needed. You would cut and stick and paste and make mess after mess creating your latest masterpiece. You would run until your legs felt like they might fall off playing the hottest playground game. You would learn. You would play.

You would, without knowing it, invest in your own growth.

In fact, almost everything you did when you were little was an investment in growing.

We went to school to learn in an environment which was designed (for better or worse) to help us grow. While no one’s school experience was perfect, and some even less though. But those years were time to invest in our futures. You had time to learn from teachers and learn by playing. The investments we made then have led us all, in part, to where we are now.

We spent all of that time investing in ourselves. As we grow older we seem to spend less effort investing in ourselves than investing time in other people and project. But we are not finite resources.

This year I’m taking a pledge to reverse that balance, as much as I can, to something more like where it was when I was small. I’m going to be a child again and I’m going to get myself back into school for the things I care about. I want to focus on learning, and having fun as I do it.

There are four key pillars to investing yourself and I’ve tried to put them in some familiar educational terms:

  1. Attend some classes – these don’t have to be physical, in 2019 there are plenty of online classes too. Unlike in school, you can choose to learn alone or with other people, however you work best.
  2. Do your homework – so no one really liked homework as a kid, but putting in the extra reading and adding breadth and depth to your interests is so worth it.
  3. Give yourself fresh air – there’s a reason you have so many breaks during the school day. You can’t learn non-stop, you need time to let everything you’ve absorbed percolate. You have to decompress and turn lessons into memories.
  4. Find a playground – you need to experiment. One of the best ways to truly use you new found knowledge is to grow is to take it apart and make it into something new for yourself. While you do that you have to have space to fail as well as succeed.

How are you investing in yourself? We remember best the things we teach others and I’d love for you to turn this into a forum for teaching and growing together.

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