Before you have a heart attack, I’m not suggesting that you turn off your email forever–or even for a full day. But for me, turning off my email for an hour or two at a time is like taking a vacation these days. In fact, I’ve grown to love the feeling. Now I close out my email every time I write something other than  . . . an email.

Before I started writing, my email was often like a lifeline. I needed that ding every few minutes to prove I existed–that I was alive and someone needed me. Even if that someone was Old Navy telling me about a sale. But now, the connection and satisfaction I get from writing  a scene far outweighs the email buzz. I don’t need it anymore. In fact, I don’t want it anymore.

So, if you are rarely without your phone or email window, I recommend ditching them for an hour a day. Much like the shoes you stuff in a closet to “throw away later”–after a very short while, you won’t even notice they’re missing.

• Unsubscribe mercilessly. You are not going to miss any sales or coupons or whatevers.
• Don’t subscribe to Dailies. That writing prompt arriving in your inbox every morning might as well delete itself, am I right?
• Use an Alias. Set up a trash account on google, yahoo, whatever. Use this for everything you need to supply an email addy for but never want to hear from again.
• Use Folders. If you take a few minutes to set up sorting actions to filter your email into folders, you will save yourself hours. When everything’s sorted to a folder, you know if you have anything important to look at right away.