I see you working hard at your desk. Maybe you’re writing a report… a complicated report that involves deep knowledge and a column of numbers or two. Maybe you’re writing a chapter and you are floating down the creative rivers of your right brain, designing characters that are just beginning to stand up off the page and flex their muscles.

And then it happens. You can’t help but see it. The Mac mail icon informs you of five new emails, no, now eight, now ten! The red number beacons you. Read me. I’m important. On your PC, you can’t help but notice the flags flashing across your screen, telling you about every…single…new…email that has been deposited into your mailbox.

So you do it. You open up your mailbox. After you delete eight emails––why are you getting ads from Salvation Army anyway––you respond to an email from a friend. Sure, drinks after work tomorrow sounds great. Before deleting that email from Rothy’s you pause. Why not just take a peek? After spending twenty minutes on their site and buying yet another pair of flats that you really can’t afford, you see that you have five more emails. You might as well just read them too.

Ninety minutes later, you stare blankly at your desktop. What were you working on? That project. You open the doc but you’re not feeling it. Why? Because any neuroscientist will tell you. It’s really hard to go from shallow processing back into deeper integrative work. Your brain doesn’t love that transition.

You get up and walk around the office. By the time you are ready to work, you have just wasted two-and-a-half hours. And all you got for it were shoes that you don’t even need.

Sound familiar? Yes.

Depressing? Yes.

Unsolvable? Nope.

Here’s the plan. Right now, enter two time periods into your daily calendar… do it in ink (if it’s a paper calendar) or in bold text (if it’s digital). Put in one period before you start your day and one in the late afternoon.

These will be the only times that you will check and respond to emails. How long you schedule these periods will depend on how many emails you receive every day. I get about 100 emails a day (although many of these go immediately into the trash) and I need two hours a day for email containment. If you feel your anxiety rising as you read this, go ahead and give yourself two periods of ninety minutes to read and respond to emails. Yes, three hours on email if you need it. You’ll still come out ahead by the end of the day.

Make it your mission to slay those Email Dementors. Your brain will thank you.