Do you do this too? I am the queen of marking emails as “unread” until I respond or tackle the item. It has become my little way of keeping it on the to-do list until it’s done.
I have realized that, of course, this is not a great way to manage my inbox.
In the past, every time I opened my Gmail app when I was out and about, I'd take a look at something. I'd read it. Then mark it as unread.
But because I read it, I kind of opened a tab in my brain about it, right?
I started to think about it, but I didn’t have enough time to actually close the loop and finish it until later, so it just remained an “open mental tab” in my brain instead.
This week I did an experiment in creating mental inventory
I took the Gmail app completely off my phone. I know, it sounds crazy.
I have noticed a few things. One, it is absolutely wild to observe how many times I naturally, compulsively open the app on my phone and refresh. I even had a little routine – check text firsts, then email, then weather…
So now I’ve taken the app off my phone but the habit is so ingrained in me, mental and physically, that my fingers start to look for the app even though it’s no longer there.
I want to practice what I preach, and living my Vision means being more consistent with my actions.
Works in progress create waste, and sometimes more work
According to Lean business principles and the idea of eliminating waste in a process; one of the biggest forms of waste is works in progress.
Equating it to a factory floor, you’ve got all these widgets being made under one machine, and they need to be packaged in another machine to be finished. In between the first machine where they're manufactured and the second machine where they're finished, they are a work in progress.
They're not done yet, but they have to sit somewhere and take up space between machine 1 and machine 2.
Whenever you mark something as unread, you’re moving it from the first machine (opening it and reading it the first time) into inventory, before it gets to the second machine (leaving it in your brain to sit until you finally do it).
But that's not really helping us get it done any better later, because while yes, we might get a glimpse of what that email was about, but we weren’t reading it with our full focus and able to really understand what it was all about, which means we’re not in a position to fully respond to it, which means we’ll think about it all day, and then later when we’re ready, we’ll need to read the email again to remind ourselves what it said.
So now we’ve even created rework which is also a form of waste.
Your brain has limited space
Now imagine your brain is like the inventory warehouse, with finite space. When we have a “mental” work in progress. We're building up that mental inventory in the same way, and it's taking up a ton of space in our brain.
Whenever I do a workshop, whether it's with individual leaders or a leadership team, I always have what I call the magical bag of freedom. Before we start, everyone turns their phones on airplane mode and puts their phone in the bag.
And everyone of course has a terrified look in their eyes before they do that. It's kind of like losing an appendage.
But, then they're able to focus. They get SO much more out of the day. On breaks, they're not going back to their phone to get a rush of notifications that open up more “works in progress” and divert that mental energy away from the workshop.
Free up mental space to level up what you’re giving mental energy
Freeing up mental space, like closing tabs on your overheating laptop, allows you to focus on bigger things; like becoming a better decision-maker, leading with proactivity and intentionality.
I know that you might read this and the thought of taking your email app off of your phone might sound horrifying. I totally get that.
How to clear your brain
The first step is just being aware of it. Observe when you start to build up those mental works in progress in your mind, whether it’s email or snail mail, slacks or texts.
Then observe, when do you finish those works in progress? By the end of the day? Do you go back and you go finish out all those emails? Do you respond to all those notifications or do they roll over to the next day?
Once you can notice your patterns, you can see which ones are taking up the most inventory.
For me, it was those dang emails. Sometimes, I’d end up not even responding at all!
Whatever it is for you, hopefully this gives you some tactics for freeing up mental space and spending it on something more productive like your Vision of success :)
Need help clearing space? Let’s get on a call.