Why You Keep Checking Your Email (Even When You Don’t Need To)

7 Mar

You sit down to do deep work—write a paper, prep a lecture, plan your research.

But before you know it, your fingers are on autopilot.

📩 Inbox. Refresh. Scroll. Click.

And now you’re reading a student email, responding to an admin request, or stress-scrolling through messages you didn’t need to check yet.

You know this is killing your productivity. But you do it anyway.

Why? Because email isn’t just email. It’s a habit loop.

Problem:

There are two main reasons you keep checking email when you could have avoided it.

1️⃣ Practical Reasons (Task-Related):

✅ You need a document stored in your inbox.

✅ You’re checking your calendar (because Outlook keeps it in your email).

✅ You just need “one quick thing” from a message.

But the second you open your inbox, you’re sucked into a dozen other things.

2️⃣ Emotional Reasons (The Pull of Boredom & Anxiety):

😬 Bored? Email gives you a dopamine hit. A new message feels like progress. Maybe there’s good news waiting. Maybe it’ll feel productive.

😰 Anxious? You check “just in case” you missed something urgent. You don’t want to get in trouble. You want to feel on top of things.

But here’s the thing—even if there’s nothing urgent, you’ll find something else to deal with.

Suddenly, the paper you were meant to be working on is forgotten, and you’re drowning in emails that didn’t need your attention yet.

In one of my trainings in The Sisterhood, you can learn how to get freedom from the pull of email in Taming the Inbox.

💡 Taming the Inbox is not another email productivity system that just tells you to manage your email better.

It actually teaches you to:

✅ Stop using email as a storage system so you’re not pulled in for “just one thing.”

✅ Recognise when your brain is using email as a dopamine hit (and what to do instead).

✅ Overcome the fear of missing something important so you can actually focus.

It’s a practical + mindset shift that finally breaks the cycle of email running your workday.

When you start applying Taming the Inbox, you will:

✔ Get a hold on your email anxiety, so you check your email when you decide—not every time your frayed nervous system tells you to.

✔ Get through your inbox faster—without it pulling you into hours of extra work.

✔ Have entire mornings free for deep work—without the pull of “just checking.”

✔ Finally, stop refreshing your inbox during evenings, weekends, on the toilet, brunch with friends, or at your kid’s sporting event.

This is how you take back control of your time and feel better.

If you want to stop feeling like your inbox runs your life, you need this training.

Academia’s overwork culture is real—but are you using it as a shield?