Just deal with it, not bothered how

I’m finding these kinds of articles about people moaning about their email more and more annoying.

Unanswered emails were the bane of my life – until I spent a month in search of inbox nirvana
I renegotiate the terms of this week (with myself) and instead resolve never to check emails on my phone. This is because, as Gomes tells me, it is a “really, really stupid” thing to do. He describes a crushingly familiar scenario: you skim through emails on your phone, and half-read one that stresses you out. You can’t read it properly because it’s on a small screen which is “psychologically frustrating”, and you can’t reply because you get distracted – you so half-read it three times, growing more and more anxious, before you finally sit down at your computer, and realise it wasn’t as bad as you thought.

To prevent myself from checking my email on my iPhone’s browser, I move the Safari icon so that it is nine swipes away. It works. I feel simultaneously triumphant and riddled with self-loathing.

Yes, some people get more email than others. And yes, it’s taking up more of our time than it used to. But no, it’s not an interruption from your work, dealing with email is a part of your work now. And has been for, what, 20 years? There’s so much advice out there on how to work smarter with email—filters and rules, labels and folders, even declaring email bankruptcy now and then. Whatever works for you. Just get on with it.