Shut off email.  No seriously.  Shut off email.

I’ve been trying to get backups reconfigured at work for months now.  Everytime I try to work on it, something else comes up.  So today I put up a “Do Not Disturb” sign, and ignored my email.  I actually got real work done for the first time in about a month.  My day usually consists of one constant interuption after another and “please, will you do this little thing” which “little thing” invariably takes over the rest of the day preventing me from finishing the work I really need to do.

After getting backups where I wanted them, I checked my email and realized none of it was very critical, though everybody thought they had a really really important thing that had to be done right away.  I think I am going to keep the “Do Not Disturb” sign, and next time shut off the phone as well as email.