The decision

Everything so far has been the reasoning. This chapter is the decision, and I'd rather it were one sentence you can keep than a programme you'll abandon.

The rule is this. I answer work messages inside the window, I've said what the window is, and the phone can't ask me anything outside it. The first part is chapter 17. The second is chapter 18. The third is chapter 19. That's the whole method, and once it's set up it takes no time at all, because its whole point is time you don't spend.

I'd write the rule down and keep it near where the phone charges. Then make three plans in a form that's been tested more than most things in this book. Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran pooled 94 studies of what they call implementation intentions, plans of the form "when this, then that", and found that people who make them are considerably more likely to follow through than people who merely intend. The form matters because it names the moment, and the moment is where habits are decided.

When it's six o'clock and I'm about to leave, then I look at the inbox once, deal with what's urgent, and put the phone on its schedule. The last look is inside the window. It's the shop turning the sign round.

When I notice I'm wondering what's in the inbox, then I say "it's in the kitchen, and the other door's open" and go back to what I was doing. The wonder needs an answer, and this is the answer. It's true, and it's short, and it doesn't involve going to the kitchen.

When a message reaches me anyway, through a channel I forgot to silence or a look I didn't mean to take, then I don't reply and I don't nod, and I answer it at the morning edge. The reply is the lesson. Not sending it is the only way to teach the other one.

What to expect, and I want to be plain that this is my expectation and not a finding. Phillippa Lally and colleagues followed 96 volunteers forming a new daily habit and found that it became automatic over weeks and sometimes months, with wide variation between people, and that missing a single day didn't much affect the process. The window is a habit of not doing something, which is harder to feel forming, and I'd expect the first fortnight to be the loud part and the second month to be when you stop noticing the phone is in the kitchen.

The rule hasn't been tested as a package, and I can't tell you that the messages will stop or that your manager will be pleased. What I can tell you is that the evidence in this book runs one way. The sender expects less than you think. The harm is in the watching, not the minutes. And the expectation is one you taught, which means it's one you can teach differently, starting with the next buzz you don't answer.