Tony posted some great thoughts about getting the most out of your digital world – seems like concentrating on a few tools correctly is the best method. Here’s a clip:

* Email 3 times a day: I check email at 12pm, 5pm and 9pm. This is extremely difficult but it is where you will find one of the most significant boosts in simplicity and concentration in your work day. I have to say this has actually irritated me because I have the terrible habit of letting email distract me into random (and lazy) action.
* RSS 1 a day: This is purely input for my benefit, it makes no difference how quickly or often I respond to this. I may even push this back to 2-3 times a week only.
* TURN OF OUTLOOK AND EMAIL POP UP NOTIFICATIONS. The only reason you would have this up is to distract yourself. It isn’t healthy to have your attention so suspect to the whim of everyone who has the possibility of demanding your attention at any moment. I explained it to a friend like this. Image playing baseball, but at any moment any of the potential batters on a team could have a pitch thrown to them – and they would need to be ready. To make it like email, any of the opposing team or fans could be the ones through the pitches. Doesn’t make for a very good batting average does it? Batters warm up, settle down and focus on the job at hand – email is just the same.

JG