How do you waste the most time every day?

I’ve come to realize that email has quietly become the most time-consuming part of my day. It’s not writing, it’s not family time, it’s not even the hundred other things on my to-do list—it’s sitting in front of my inbox, swimming through multiple active email addresses like I’m sorting mail for a small town.

The variety is almost comical. I’m answering genuine correspondence, reading industry updates, forwarding information to family members, keeping conversations alive with fellow writers, and then there’s the endless parade of promotional offers for my books. Each one requires its own detective work: Is this a legitimate opportunity or another “special discount” that somehow costs more than the regular price? The predatory marketing in the publishing world never ceases to amaze me.

What strikes me most is how email’s instant delivery has created this false urgency. That little notification pings, and suddenly it feels like the sender is standing right there, tapping their foot, waiting for an immediate response. We’ve trained ourselves to treat every message like it’s urgent, when most of them are just… Tuesday.

I’m starting to think the solution isn’t better email management—it’s permission to let email be less immediate. Maybe scheduling specific times for email, like we used to do with physical mail, instead of letting it interrupt every quiet moment throughout the day. The world managed to function when letters took days to arrive and weeks to be answered. Perhaps instant doesn’t always need to mean immediate.

The irony isn’t lost on me that managing communication about my writing is keeping me from actually writing. Time to reclaim some boundaries around the inbox.