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Don't Let Email Zombies Eat Up Your Day

Let's face it: Email is killing our productivity. The average person checks their inbox 11 times per hour, processes 122 messages a day, and spends 28 percent of their total workweek managing their inbox. Outside of work, more than 80% of workers monitor their email over the weekend, nearly 60% tend to their inboxes on vacation, and 6% admit to checking email while their wife was in labor or during a funeral. So much for life's precious moments!

And for those of you who think that Slack is killing email, think again. Recent projections suggest that worldwide email usage will grow by 12% in the coming years. What's more, it ain't just the “olds” who are obsessed with email. It turns out that email addiction is more—rather than less—prevalent among the younger generation. One recent study found that millennials are more frequent users of email than any other age group: They are more likely check email from bed (70%), from the bathroom (57%), or—most disturbingly—while driving (27%).

Like some evil workplace zombie, email is literally sucking away our time, our attention, and our energy. Frustrated by its debilitating impact on our working lives, I spent a year delving into the science behind our email addiction for my new book, Unsubscribe. These are four of my favorite research-backed strategies for minimizing the time you spend on email and maximizing the hours you spend on meaningful work.

1. Check your email in “batches” for less stress and more happiness.

There are two types of emailers: reactors, who rely on notifications and near-constant monitoring of their inboxes to nibble away at their email throughout the day, and batchers, who set aside specific chunks of time to power through their email, so they can ignore it the rest of the day. Not surprisingly, batchers are significantly more productive when it comes to getting shit done, and according to recent research, they're also less stressed and more happy.

To get yourself into the groove of batching, try blocking out two to three daily email check-in times on your calendar, perhaps 30 minutes a piece. If at all possible, schedule an additional 45-90 minutes for creative work before you check your email for the first time. Then, when you do turn your attention to your inbox, no matter what you find there—what fires you have to put out, what unwanted questions you have to respond to—you've already gotten some good work done that day.

If at all possible, schedule an additional 45-90 minutes for creative work before you check your email for the first time.

2. Neutralize your “fear of missing out” by using VIP email notifications.

If you'd like to stick to specific blocks of time for checking email, but you have a special someone who will freak out if you don't tend to their email within five minutes of receiving it—or if the whole idea of ignoring your inbox just makes you too anxious—compromise by using VIP notifications. On an iPhone, you can designate certain people as VIPs so their emails go to a separate VIP inbox. You can also configure your notifications to play a special tone when that inbox gets a message. If you have an Android phone, you can use the Gmail app to set up a similar system for notifications when messages arrive from designated “priority senders.”

And your VIPs don't have to be fixed. I change mine regularly based on what projects have priority at the moment and what I'm feeling anxious about. If I notice I can't stop peeking at my inbox because I want to know if I scored the dream apartment I just applied for, or I'm awaiting a time-sensitive reply from a client for a project that's on deadline, then I just pop that person onto my VIP list. Now I no longer have to monitor my inbox like a maniac because I know I'll be alerted as soon as the message arrives.

3. Boost your focus by closing your email when you're doing other tasks.

Research has shown that just having your email program open in the background of your computer screen as you focus on another task, even if the window is minimized, can decrease performance. Even if your email isn't front and center, your brain still knows it's there in the background and devotes a certain amount of energy to monitoring it, which drains your focus for executing on the task at hand.

Avoid such distractions by quarantining your email in a separate area from your main workspace. This might mean setting up a separate monitor just for email or checking your email only on a mobile phone or tablet. Checking your email in a physically separate space can actually make your incoming messages—and any attendant anxiety or urgency—feel more distant and less pressing. The less cluttered your primary work screen is, the more serene your mind is, and the easier it is to focus.

Pro Tip: This advice about “quarantining” apps with constant push notifications also applies to Slack or other collaborative apps that emit constant notifications and updates. The tax on your attention is lower if you keep them running on a separate, glance-able screen nearby (or on your phone if a second screen isn't an option) rather than on your primary computer screen. It sounds silly, but interruptions sabotage your short-term memory, so one of the problems that sets us back is literally remembering what we were just working on. If your primary screen is reserved for your primary task, rather than buried under a bunch of Slack and social media windows, you're more likely to be able to return to it quickly after an interruption.

The less cluttered your primary work screen is, the more serene your mind is, and the easier it is to focus.

4. Know that multi-tasking with email reduces your IQ and your creativity.

Every time you stop doing a task you are working on to check your email, you incur what researchers call a “switching cost.” Particularly if you're doing any kind of work that requires deep concentration (aka creative flow) such as writing, coding, or assembling a presentation, it typically takes at least 25 minutes to get properly back into the task after you've interrupted yourself. (I'm no great shakes at math, but I'm pretty sure that means if you check your email twice while doing an hour of creative work, you've basically gotten nowhere.) Another study done in the UK found that when people tried to juggle managing their inbox with doing their work, their IQ fell by 10 points—the equivalent of working without a night of sleep or smoking reefer on the job. So the next time you want to interrupt yourself for a quick glance at your inbox, remember that it could literally make you dumber.

—

This post is adapted from the book Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distraction, and Get Real Work Done, by Jocelyn K. Glei, the founding editor of 99U and author of Manage Your Day-to-Day. It's available on Amazon now.

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The Monsanto Merger Blues
This week, hundreds of farmers from the National Farmers Union are converging on Washington DC to plead with decision makers to say "no" to a blockbusting roster of agribusiness mergers.

Farmers--and consumers--have reason to worry. This level of corporate consolidation will give these companies unprecedented power over our farms, our land and our food.

Chemical giant Bayer has just announced its intention to purchase Monsanto, the world's leading seed and pesticide supplier. Not to be left behind, DuPont and Dow, and Syngenta and ChemChina--the rest of the "Big Six" that already control 51% of seed and 72% of the pesticides in the international market--are in frantic merger negotiations. If they consolidate, three companies would control nearly 60% of the world's seeds. Why the rush to merge? Saturated markets have dropped profit margins. Corporate consolidation is the only way to increase returns to shareholders.

None of this has anything to do with feeding people.

We already produce 1 ½ times more than enough food to feed every person on the planet. Unfortunately, over a billion of the world's people are too poor to buy this food - so they go hungry. Corporate mergers aren't going to change that.

As suppliers consolidate, farmers lose power and choice and get stuck with high input prices and no alternatives at a time of painfully low grain prices. The only way to make their bottom line is to expand operations, getting ever bigger to cover their fixed costs. It's the way of capitalist agriculture. Too bad for young farmers seeking to break into agriculture--the land and technology bar has just been raised again. Monopolization increases the tendency of land consolidation- which means bigger farms and fewer farmers.

Seeds, inputs, machinery, financing, insurance, and big data provided by the corporate giants are made to deliver larger and larger batches of uniform products to retailers, that are also consolidating and vertically integrating. (Even Amazon, who is recruiting an army of agronomists, is planning to sell food through huge supply centers, where taxis and drones will ultimately deliver food to consumers.)

Big food and ag corporations need big farms and big (expensive) technology. Where will farmers get the money to upgrade? Land.

Banks now hold workshops in which they advise producers to sell their land as a business measure to recapitalize operations. They urge farmers to "financialize" by selling the US heartland to international investors whose time horizon is governed by the click of a mouse. Land will concentrate in the hands of those looking to reap profits from hundreds of thousands of land transactions carried out in the cybersphere far from the farms, the consumers seeking healthy, sustainably produced food, and beyond the empty bellies of the world's poor.

Institutional investors have already bought about $40 billion of agricultural land - they'd buy more if they could, but many farmers aren't yet willing to sell. In five years, however, 63% of agricultural land will be inherited or sold. The question is, who will take over? Financial investors or family farmers?

Right now, the front line of resistance to the continued corporatization and consolidation of agriculture in the United States is the commodity producer of corn and soybeans - the family farmers that are in Washington DC this week with the National Farmers Union voicing opposition to consolidation of the industry that determines their livelihoods.

But it's not just their livelihoods that are impacted by these potential mergers - it's our food and agricultural system as a whole. Food activists seeking to transform our food and agricultural system need to stand with those on the frontlines against the continued corporatization and financialization of agriculture. Contrary to the food movement's "good food" narrative, this means allying with conventional family farmers, especially those stuck on the pesticide-GMO-subsidy treadmill the movement so vehemently excoriates. We've got a lot to learn from them:

Family farmers have been pushing back against the corporate takeover of agriculture for more than a century. If farmers find a way to make money, the industry will find a way to take its cut. You saw it happen to commodity farmers when prices were high several years ago, and you see it now with large processors and big box retailers wanting to profit from the organic and sustainable food movement that farmers built. If farmers voluntarily pit themselves against each other because we are growing different things or using different production methods, the only winner will be the corporate food system. It's not easy to bring a diverse group of farmers - conventional commodities, livestock, dairy, fruits & vegetables, organic - together under one big tent. But we do it because we are fighting for the survival of the family farm, and we can't afford to choose up sides against each other.

- Jana Linderman, President Iowa Farmers Union

As far as corporate consolidation goes, it is time for the food movement to tactically align itself with the family farm movement, and with organizations like the National Farmers Union. It is in everyone's interest to keep the monopolies from consolidating, and ultimately to keep farmland ownership in the hands of farmers--not financial investors. This may be a bitter pill for some, but it is a far sight better than turning over our food system to corporate shareholders and financial investors.

Food and agricultural activists are calling on the US Department of Justice to evoke antitrust laws and stop the merger. Now is the time for the food movement to ally with those whose livelihoods depend upon stopping the continued financialization and corporatization of agriculture. Our food future depends on it.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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River at Risk: Oil, Gas, Nukes Threaten New York Health

The Hudson River is under threat, again. Just when we thought we were in the clear - and that river towns up and down the Hudson Valley could enjoy scenic river views for restaurants, new housing, parks and other critical economic development - we're playing defense, again. Oil barges, nuclear plants and gas pipelines all now threaten the integrity of the river.

Remember that not too long ago the river was the dumping ground for toxics and municipal waste and that it's still recovering from General Electric's inexcusable release of PCBs into public waters. Had it not been for Hudson Valley voices - like the Riverkeeper and those who care about Clearwater (thank you, Pete Seeger) - we'd still have sludge and fecal matter floating by Manhattan.

Now it's a different kind of threat. While it's not sewage, it's equally serious, if not more so. It's oil, it's nuclear and it's gas. Ignore for a moment that these are all wrong directions for our energy transition - as non-renewable, toxic and expensive fuels - they're all threatening the critical health of the Hudson River.

First and foremost, oil is the most urgent threat. The U.S. Coast Guard is keen to let the oil industry now use the river for crude oil transport and build 43 berths in 10 locations along the Hudson River. The potential for oil spills is real and frightening (for both human and marine life), and the Coast Guard's move also threatens to scrape and scar the river bottom (with anchors and anchor chains) and further endanger sturgeon and other critical species.

The oil industry, to be clear, is already pushing oil pipelines on land throughout the Hudson Valley, moving volatile crude oil on rail (known as "bomb trains") and putting our river at immediate risk. Now the industry, aided and abetted by the Coast Guard, wants to escalate this volatile equation and place more oil precariously on the water, a bet that no elected official in their right mind should wage. We can put a stop to this, and should, by telling a taxpayer-funded agency, the Coast Guard, to guard against industry interest and protect the greater good, our river, and all the human and marine health and economies that depend on it. (Send your comments to the Coast Guard here.)

Second, nuclear plants are currently killing billions of fish, eggs and larvae in the river. Power plants along the Hudson River are withdrawing 1.2 trillion gallons every year. Sound benign? It's not. Yet, the industry-friendly Nuclear Regulatory Commission refuses to protect public interest. Plants like Entergy's Indian Point nuclear power plant, which continues to break down and leak radioactive waste and sit insecurely a few dozen miles north of Manhattan, use the river's water to cool their facilities and discharge the heated water back into the Hudson - killing billions of organisms annually. Unlike humans, our Hudson fish hate hot tubs.

It doesn't have to be this way, but we continue to allow private industry to use public assets to pay for this problem. It's time for that to end and to support New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo's call for shutting down Indian Point (and Riverkeeper's work to protect millions of New Yorkers from nuclear disaster).

Third, a high pressure Spectra Energy pipeline, carrying fracked gas for export (so that other countries can have higher carbon footprints) is expanding under the Hudson and adjacent to the failing Indian Point nuclear facility, making a combustible situation even more volatile. While New York's Senators Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand and Governor Cuomo have called for a halt to the pipeline construction, because of the "threat to the quality of life, environmental, health and safety of residents across the Hudson Valley and New York State without any long-term benefit to the communities it would impact," the construction continues.

Spectra Energy is leaving in its wake destroyed wetlands, clear-cut forests and increasingly endangered Hudson Valley health (don't get me started on the toxic particulates the pipeline will exhaust near my neighboring hometown of Peekskill). Most disconcertingly, the high-pressure pipeline runs within bomb shot of Indian Point's aging nuclear plant, making our region a sitting duck for those who wish to do serious damage. Again, our taxpayer funded Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a close friend of the private industry, refuses to protect public interest. This, too, must end. (Find out more about how to protect fellow New Yorkers here.)

The fight to protect our Hudson River is back on. In fact, it never ended, but it feels like we're back in the mid-1900s again. This time with different contaminants and dangers, all of which pose serious security and safety risks to human and Hudson River health. We don't need another superfund site but rather serious foresight to ensure that cleanups don't become a river town pastime. Calling on all who care. It's time to rise up for our river.

Michael Shank, PhD, is a resident of Peekskill in the Hudson Valley and teaches sustainable development NYU's Center for Global Affairs.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Why Clean Energy Is Center Stage on International Day of Peace
Each year since 1981, the United Nations (UN) recognizes an International Day of Peace on September 21. The day is intended to strengthen peace both within and among nations.

As an environmental advocate, I can't help but think about the effects of climate change on the current state of global peace. And while there are a few climate deniers out there, those who have looked at the science are saying climate change poses a serious threat to global security and peace.

Fortunately, the UN agrees - which is why they chose to focus this year's International Peace Day on Sustainable Development Goals. Unanimously adopted by all 193 UN member states, the Sustainable Development Goals are broken down into 17 focus areas and are part of a broader agenda to fight inequality, injustice, and climate change by 2030.

"2016-09-19-1474299265-3320348-HuffPostSDG.jpg"

Goal 7 - "ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all" - is a hugely important part of fostering global peace. The world needs affordable, reliable electricity to heat, cool, and power our homes, and to encourage economic growth. But we also need this electricity to be clean, modern, and efficient, so it doesn't pollute our communities and exacerbate climate change.

Here are four ways the U.S. is doing our part to achieve an affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy system for all:

Affordability: In rural, poverty-persistent parts of the country, energy efficiency is the most direct way to save people money and reduce energy use, but it is often overlooked when families face hard choices about where to spend their money. On-bill financing is one solution that's helping Americans finance energy efficiency upgrades without the burden of upfront costs. Upgrades are paid for over time (via utility bills) from the resulting energy savings of efficiency improvements. The program reduces energy use and saves people money, which is especially important in rural communities where median household incomes are shrinking compared to their urban and suburban counterparts. In North Carolina, non-profits like Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and electric cooperatives (or "co-ops," which supply power to 42 million Americans in rural areas) are partnering to expand on-bill financing.
Reliability: Electricity touches everything we do. So when the grid goes down, the effects can range anywhere from inconvenient to life-threatening. With the help of smart meters, which now exist in nearly half of U.S. households and deliver detailed energy-use data to utilities, we can begin to identify outages faster and with great precision (meaning shorter outages). Smart meters can also enable energy management tools like demand response - which pays people to reduce energy when the electric grid is stressed - that can help improve reliability and reduce outages. New York recently approved an historic plan by its largest utility to distribute smart meters to millions of homes. This move will help increase efficiency, improve reliability, and lower pollution.
Sustainability: An estimated 12.6% of U.S. energy use is water-related. That's equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 40 million Americans. Ensuring a sustainable future means addressing the way we manage our electricity and our water - part of what's known as the "energy-water nexus." Based in Austin, Texas, Pecan Street, Inc., the nation's largest energy research network and an EDF partner, is studying and piloting some of the same strategies that are helping the energy sector get smart. Just like smart energy meters, smart water meters can help residents conserve resources by giving them access to meaningful data about when and how they use water. By saving water, we can save energy, too, which means fewer polluting power plants.
Modernity: A key aspect of modern energy is that it should be accessible to all. While the price of solar panels has fallen 80 percent since 2008, many Americans reside in multi-unit buildings, or don't own a home on which to install solar panels. But the solar game is changing and new models are emerging. Community solar, defined as "a solar-electric system that provides power and/or financial benefit to, or is owned by, multiple community members," presents a unique opportunity to bring solar access to the masses. Cities like Los Angeles, California and San Antonio, Texas are actively working to expand community solar. And nationally, community solar is predicted to more than double between 2015 and 2016.

Global consensus

These examples reveal the new look of energy in America. Other nations are making clean energy progress, too, though their circumstances vary. For example, in Lesotho, Southern Africa, clean energy sometimes looks like solar panels on homes in rural areas that can't be reached by vehicles. In Chennai, India, clean energy can be seen in the solar steam cooking system in a home-school for 650 orphans.

Yet, despite regional differences, this International Day of Peace - with Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy at center stage - reminds us that around the world, efforts to nurture a safer, more prosperous future are cut from the same cloth. It's also a reminder that the world agrees with Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon's message: "Affordable, clean energy is the golden thread that links economic growth, increased social equity, and a healthy environment."

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or, officially, "Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"). The SDGs represent an historic agreement -- a wide-ranging roadmap to sustainability covering 17 goals and 169 targets -- but stakeholders must also be held accountable for their commitments. To see all the posts in the series, visit here.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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How to Save the UN

One of the reasons that I chose to run for the position of United Nations Secretary General is that I could see the interconnected nature of many of the crises that the world faces today. While I have now withdrawn from the race, I was and remain, full of hope that when we treat them as interrelated issues and work to address their root causes, we can all win.

One of the key crises will be discussed at a UN Summit this week. The crisis is that today we live in a world where 65 million people have been forced from their homes -- more than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Media images of streams of people walking away from their homes have become commonplace over the last 18 months. The heartbreaking stories of those who have lost their lives as they fled the desperate situations in their homelands have lasting implications long after they have left the front pages.

It is anticipated that this week's UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants will seek to better protect migrants and refugees during their perilous journeys, and while this is vital, it will count for little unless we deal with the reasons why people are having to leave.

The UN acknowledges that the international community has been "struggling for years to find better ways to resolve violent conflicts in many parts of the world and to mitigate the impact of climate change and disasters. Alleviating extreme poverty, food insecurity, lack of decent work, inequality, tackling discrimination and human-rights violations and abuses, establishing rule of law, mitigating the impact of disasters and climate change are all massive tasks."

Yet these tasks that are already described as 'massive' are getting bigger. With temperature records being broken month by month, the impacts that climate change has had on conflict and refugees in places like Syria and Mali will only grow. With sea-level rise advancing more quickly than scientists predicted, those communities in the South Pacific and in Alaska who have already been forced to move will be joined by many more. Though climate is not the only factor impacting the choices being made by these people, it is a real and growing danger.

The incumbent UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will leave a legacy of working to reform the UN to break down the institutional silos that slow us down when we respond to such crises. He will leave a legacy of having put frameworks in place -- such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement -- that can help address some of the 'massive tasks'.

But this important work needs to be sped up and increased, for example, by incorporating an understanding of climate risk into everything that the UN does. This would ensure that over the longer term we understand better where the hot spots are and how to help prevent system breakdown. It would also give teeth to the conclusions of the inaugural World Humanitarian Summit held earlier this year.

Though I have worked at the heart of the UN for years, I have learnt a lot more about the institution and its peculiar brand of realpolitik over the course of the past few months. It is more clear to me than ever that UN is on the verge of a precipice.

Its next leader -- and there are strong candidates in this race -- has the responsibility to ensure the UN delivers on those groundbreaking agreements made last year, which would see us effectively address poverty, better protect people in their own homes, and create more possibilities of peace. To do in fact what the UN was created to do. But the UN can only do that if it eschews the turf wars and patronage that weakens its ability to do its job properly.

We cannot afford a world without the UN. But the UN must continue to evolve so that it is up to the challenges of the 21^st century.

I urge the Security Council to avoid the path of least resistance, I urge them to push for transformation. Though it might seem more difficult at first, this is how we deliver on our promises and put the organisation on a strong footing for the next 70 years, one that will serve the many millions that have already been forced from their homes and those who still live in fear. Don't choose politics, choose the right person for the job.

Ms. Figueres is the top UN authority on global climate change. She was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) between July 2010 and July 2016. Assuming responsibility for the international climate change negotiations after the failed Copenhagen conference of 2009, she was successful in leading the process to a universally agreed regulatory action framework.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of two critical conferences at the UN on the Refugee and Migrant crisis: the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants (Sept. 19th, a UN conference) and the Leaders Summit on Refugees (Sept. 20th, hosted by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, at the UN). To see all the posts in the series, visit here. To follow the conversation on Twitter, see #UN4RefugeesMigrants.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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1. Check your email in “batches” for less stress and more happiness.

2. Neutralize your “fear of missing out” by using VIP email notifications.

3. Boost your focus by closing your email when you're doing other tasks.

4. Know that multi-tasking with email reduces your IQ and your creativity.

Egg by Antonett Ewan

Cam and her reflection by David A

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Falling Leaves by Jessica Drossin

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