The Morning I Didn’t Check My Email
One morning last week, I sat on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hand.
Thumb hovering. Eyes bleary. Gmail was whispering my name like a siren.
I knew how it would go: one “quick check” would lead to fifteen open tabs, three threads I’d feel obliged to reply to, and that strange feeling of having invested a lot with very little to show.
So I didn’t open it. I put the phone face down and walked to my desk.
And I wrote. One idea led to another. I went from nothing to a published article in about 18 minutes. No distraction, lots of satisfaction.
Later that day, I saw this note on Substack:
90% of writing is:
- Taking long walks
- Blocking the internet
- Doing interesting things
- Capturing ideas everywhere
- Listening to people’s questions
When you do these every day, strong writing is simply a byproduct.
It hit home. Most of those I do naturally. I walk, I listen, I collect fragments. But I realised that the second one—blocking the internet—is the biggie.
The others are about engagement; with the world, with your thoughts. But blocking is different. It’s subtractive.
Without it, the rest get drowned out. The world always has an infinite amount of noise to wash you away.
It’s not just the phone. It’s the vast tab-space of the browser. The quiet drain of “just checking.”
Your inherent human curiosity—in concert with innocent, old dopamine— becomes a trapdoor. Your focus melts like a Mr Whippy on a hot car bonnet.
Attention is a finite resource. Without guardrails, it leaks.
The only way I’m able to publish every day is by closing every window that isn’t the one I’m writing in and keeping my phone on Do Not Disturb. I block before I build. Otherwise, I end up surfing other people’s urgency all morning.
Undistractability is becoming more and more valuable each day.
So: what’s the one thing you can block out tomorrow that would let your real work through?