You can make email easier to miss. Start by turning off notifications. Remove the mail icon from your start menu or task bar. If you're using Gmail, open your email in a different window than the one you use for other browsing. You can close your email entirely, but you may find that more time-consuming than over-checking. You can also download apps that temporarily block access to your email.
The best way to make your priorities more salient is to schedule time to complete them. In addition, do a daily calendar-priority sync: List your top three priorities and review your calendar to ensure you have time to complete them. By explicitly listing your top priorities, you'll be more likely to resort to them when transitioning. It helps to put emails you need to respond to on your to-do list so that you can compare the priority level of all your tasks in one place.
In "Smarter Faster Better," Duhigg describes another airline example that illustrates how to overcome the power of cognitive tunneling. In this example, the pilot rehearses several scenarios with his team before boarding the flight. When the flight suffers dramatic mechanical failures, the team defaults to the effective approaches they rehearsed and averts the disaster. Before starting your day, determine what you're going to do when you finish a task. If you aren't scheduling your tasks, a good routine begins with visiting your to-do list and reviewing your high priority items.
Stress leads to cognitive tunneling because it causes your brain to concentrate its resources. By reducing stress, you decrease the likelihood that you'll end up with tunnel vision. Workload is one of the most common workplace stressors, causing you to ruminate on questions you aren't sure how to answer. To reduce stress, proactively answer these questions.
The most productive people do what they feel is most important more of the time than anyone else. They avoid being dragged along by subconscious forces that constantly redirect their attention. Check email when you intend to — when it is the highest priority — and stay out of your inbox the rest of the time.
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