Go an entire workday without checking my personal e-mail

I must have done this when I was travelling for work and didn’t have access to email. I’m not sure if I’ve done it any other time, maybe on the odd day when I was really busy.

But seriously, why would we get out of bed in the morning to our boring soul-destroying office jobs if we didn’t use personal emails?

I should have banned myself from using the Internet completely for a day. I think checking personal e-mail is the least harmful part of my Internet usage. Sometimes I have periods at work when I’m waiting for a call, or waiting to download huge files from a client. I don’t think there’s any harm in taking a minute or two of that time to see if anyone’s written me.

What’s really bad is when I’m supposed to be working, and I get sucked into reading a weblog discussion, or a long news article, or some online journal entries. That’s what I need to cut out.