Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

Experiment time, everyone!
As I mentioned yesterday, we are manager-free until next week.
I'm taking this opportunity to close Microsoft Outlook and turn away.
I realized yesterday that I spend a lot of time organizing, reading and responding to email. I flag some for follow-up later, I reply to multiple work emails (in separate windows) at the same time, and I fire off replies to simple questions about five minutes after they hit my Inbox.
All that time, I'm not doing anything else.
And I have a lot to do, really.
So, while performing these "Inbox management" tasks yesterday, I took care to think of the consequences of a delay on my part.
As much as it pains me to admit, even if every email had sat unread in my Inbox overnight, no one would have died as a result.
In fact, I doubt the company would have folded or that anything would have literally caught fire.
So today I'm shutting down Outlook and sticking my BlackBerry "on the charger".
At 10am and 3pm I'll look in on it again (I may even set a scheduled task on the laptop to launch it automatically) and I'll respond to everything that has arrived.
The rest of the time is productivity time.
Here is the key:
I have to seriously not check my work email for a number of hours. In a row. While I'm at work. And awake.
Also, for added difficulty, I'm going cola-free today. This keeps the experiment pure, as I've come to think of that stuff as productivity in recyclable 20 ounce bottles.
There is an added benefit to only checking my email every few hours. User access to me is limited to emergency desk phone calls. I suspect a lot of issues trivial enough to be addressed in email can work themselves out before I get around to responding.
Either way, we will find out.