This morning on Radio 4 they did a piece on the role of the internet in modern society.

Bob Geldof offered a wonderful piece of time management advice.  I understood him to say that that none of the companies that he was ‘involved with’ were allowed to receive e-mails before 2.00pm.  He went on to say that he ‘would like to think’ that this improved productivity.

I am sure it does.  The whole morning is available without e-mail distraction to do high value work.  This stops people easing their way into the day by ‘doing’ e-mails only to find half the day gone and they have got nothing (of real consequence) done.

I only download e-mails every three hours – a thought which horrifies most people.  But once they recognise that there really is no such thing as an urgent e-mail – and that I  enjoy the benefits of long periods at work un-interrupted by e-mail most start to see the point.

Another good reason for Bob’s ‘no e-mail till 2’ rule is that doing e-mail is a pretty low level activity.  Much of it can be done on auto-pilot – so do it after lunch – when we take a bit of a performance hit anyway.