A few weeks ago, I made a post about how I am addicted to e-mail and how I have attempted to wean myself off e-mail to make myself more productive and less attached to e-mail.  In the end, the goal is to be Lazy Business Owner and being a slave anyone who wants to reach you on their schedule, goes against all of that.  

There was a great article in BusinessWeek recently how most people don't take vacation as often as they should or for as long as they should.  They become so attached to work that they can't mentally relax to get the full benefit of being on vacation. 

But one of the more interesting nuggets of facts in the article is that checking e-mail is clincally addictive for some Internet users: 

Scrolling through e-mail and punching out text messages fire up the dopamine-reward system, unleashing a pleasure-inducing hit that for an estimated 6% of Internet users has become clinically addictive.

The Problem with Being Addicted to E-mail  

Part of being a Lazy Business owner means being the boss and not being slave to the demands of your business.  If you're constantly on e-mail, you will never fully free yourself from the business or create the systems and processes to ensure that everything is taken care of if you're not around.  

I have started checking e-mail at regularly defined intervals and it has allowed me to be more productive in both responding to e-mails and in working my other tasks.  Instead of just letting something sit in my inbox and working out of that, I work the e-mail as soon as I read it.  That means deleting it, taking no action, responding right away, or creating a task to follow up on it later (if it requires more work).  I have also started creating certain times of the week to take specific actions.  For example, anything accounting related is filed away in my accounting folder and I deal with that on Fridays when I process the books.  Most of those items don't need immediate attention so it's fine to do that.  If something else does - I will take action on it when I read the e-mail.   

E-mail is a great communication tool and it is often the source of new and interesting information.  Just don't be a slave to your inbox because you will never be able to fully remove yourself from parts of the business, and if you don't ever do that, your business will not be able to reach its full potential and you will waste time checking e-mail constantly, as it becomes clinically addictive to you.