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Tim scanned his index finger on his touchpad and saw that the App Store had processed his $30 payment.

“Showtime!” he said to himself as he waited for the progress bar to finish.

Given the recent splurge on his “Bezos Bod” (see yesterday’s episode for the details), he had to lobby his wife Cathy for a new(ish) email app

It was an email app that cost $360 per year … to check your friggin’ email.

But Tim desperately needed the Superhuman app.

Tim was overwhelmed by email.

$10 Tim was drowning in low-leverage, low-value $10 work.

Scheduling. Rescheduling. Newsletters. Research bulletins. Receipts. Threads from his college roommates.

$10 Tim knew that he wasn’t alone.

He’d read a report from the McKinsey Global Institute stating that the average professional spent 28% of their week on email.

McKinsey added that this equated to “650 hours a year spent on completely reactive, low-value work.”

$10 Tim had also seen the research (in Cal Newport’s book A World without Email) that checking your email significantly increased your heart rate variability - a common measure of stress.

(His Apple Watch confirmed this, you should try it out.)

He knew that if he was going to get promoted, spend more time with Ellie (his 6 year old) and Cathy (his wife) and work on his Bezos Bod — he’d need to unlock a new source of time.

Too bad Tim’s path towards becoming a Superhuman already came with an unwelcome twist — he had to schedule a 30 minute live onboarding call with an Email Specialist.

Who has time for that?

Tim begrudgingly cancelled his 3pm workout with his trainer.

His Bezos Bod would have to wait until tomorrow.

***

$10K Tina doesn’t understand all the fuss about email overload.

As the head of Sales at a small agency, she gets a lot of it (~145 messages a day).

But as an avid time tracker, Tina knows exactly how much time she spends on email.

36 minutes a day.

With the good ‘ol (and free) Gmail app.

Tina knows that email preys on some of the worst behavioral instincts of our lizard brains.

First, there’s the Mere Urgency Effect which makes us prioritize emails deemed urgent over non-time sensitive tasks that are objectively more important.

(Said differently, knowing someone expects an email response makes you more likely to postpone an action that could improve your future self.)

Second, there’s the Zeigarnik Effect, which is why one incomplete task (i.e. have that difficult conversation with my boss) can siphon away all of your focus until the task is complete. In Tina’s words, it’s like trying to go through your day forgetting you have a hard drive — and only using RAM.

Third, there’s the Present Bias, which is why we choose immediate (and small rewards) over a larger reward further out in the future. It’s why we procrastinate, eat junk food and “forget” to fund our retirement plans — in Tina’s words, “punking your future self.”

And lastly, there’s the cost of Context Switching. $10K Tina knows all the terrifying metrics about the interruptions of email:

• It is like working drunk​
• It takes 23 minutes to recover from every context switch (yup, every time you hit Alt-Tab)
• It costs professionals 2.1 hours a day

But it was this chart from the Computer Scientist Gerald Weinberg that solidified her need to batch both her emails and her tasks.

That sea of red was what happened if you spent too much time in your Inbox.

---

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Enroll by Noon EST on 1/20 and you'll get lifetime access to our two popular courses: The GTD Power-Pack and The Fulfilling Path to Financial Independence.

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$10 Tim got out of his onboarding call with the Superhuman Email Onboarding Specialist feeling like a leopard ready to pounce. At the end of the call, the specialist had impressed upon Tim that it was vital — absolutely vital — that he learned all of Superhuman’s shortcuts.

He printed out the cheat sheet and was surprised by the huge stack that was resting on the printer tray.

(He barely printed anything these days, but thumbing through them, he remembered that 3 months ago he had snagged a PDF of Ray Dalio’s Principles from Reddit. At the time, he wanted to be a better manager — but that ship seemed to have sailed.)

$10 Tim scrutinized the list of shortcuts.

Compose is “C” — (Easy)

Remind me is “H” — (Odd)

Delete is “#” is — (Why… why?)

Delete draft is “CMD” + “Shift” + “,” — (Seriously, WTF?)

45 minutes later, he had done a practice run of all the shortcuts.

He could Mark a Message as Spam without looking at his cheat sheet.

And he gave himself a High-Five when he was able to respond to an introduction using “CMD” + “Shift” + “I” and it automatically bcc’d the introducer. (That, was cool.)

He was beginning to think that the 90 minutes he had spent becoming a Super Human would generate an ROI that would pay-off in spades.

Then his cell phone rang.

Strange. It was his boss Charlie.

“Where the heck are you?” howled Charlie.

“What do you mean,” responded Tim. He had no idea what was going on?

“Do you NOT check your e-mail,” Charlie asked incredulously.

“I sent you 4 messages in the past 90 minutes about moving up pitch prep call. But it’s been all crickets on your end.”

“But… I’ve been on email this entire time,” Tim pleaded lamely.

Then he realized the mistake. Superhuman was so smart that it was filtering Charlie’s messages into its “VIP” section.

(Ya, know — exactly where they should go.)

And Tim had missed them all.

Every. Single. One.

***

$10K Tina had a quote on her iPhone lock screen:

Surely, as a working mom it was inevitable that she'd have fire drills and last-minute client requests (not to mention 2 years worth of COVID-related re-schedulings).

But she was determined to not let email fragment her thinking, sabotage her relationships and act as a low-grade source of misery - without sacrificing her performance.

That's why $10K Tina came up with her 6 commandments:

Principle 1: The more you send, the more you get.

$10K Tina never says thank you over email. It's an unnecessary notification for both people. Never-ending-threads are always replaced by a quick phone call. Tina also uses a Tickler File to batch all her small communications for her 1:1s with her direct reports.

Principle 2: Batch emails. Only open your email app on the hour.

$10K Tina checks her email on a pre-determined schedule. Every hour, on the hour. Yup, at 9am, 10am, 11am, ... Outside those hours, Outlook is closed.

FOMO and manufactured urgency made this hard at first, but with time she quickly realized that there are practically no emails that require a response within an hour.

Principle 3: Tasks are not welcome in your Inbox.

This is a hard one for many people. But you need to separate church and state. Tasks play a very different role from emails, yet keeping tasks in your Inbox worsens the Zeigarnik effect. Those nagging unfinished tasks that consume all of your mindspace.

Principle 4: If you're not in the "To" field, you're getting filtered.

This was a simple one, yet no one seems to get it. Email is noise, this only lets through the signal. (Tina also has a ritual to check her filters at the book-ends of each day.)

Principle 5: Folders and labels are a waste of time. Use Wikis instead.

$10K Tina never understood why people spent hours categorizing emails into folders and labels. She once read an Adam Grant tweet stating that it takes 67 hours to organize emails AND makes them harder to find. For Tina, if it's knowledge, it's meant to be saved somewhere - Notion, Sharepoint, Evernote - it didn't matter as long as it's out of your inbox

Principle 6: Keyboard shortcuts are your friend

This was the cherry on top. Without the first 5 principles, Keyboard Shortcuts were worthless. But boy, could Tina soar - without using her mouse, she could schedule a Zoom meeting, create a 300 word prospecting email and search for attachments across all sub-folders.

$10K Tina wanted to scream from the rooftops, that with a principled approach to email (and to life in general) you could be freed from the misery of email.

You could spend 36 minutes a day on email.

And you could live your life, never feeling rushed.

---

"This year I want to think bigger and stop making smaller things better."

Just like Tim, you've been there.

We've all been there.

You've convinced yourself you're one tool (ahem, Superhuman) away from focusing your energy on your life's top priorities.

Yup, one Shiny New Toy away from feeling “on top of things” and “in control” of your life.

Yet deep inside, you know.

You know that:

A Shiny New Toy can't help you set the right goals.

A Shiny New Toy can't stop you from procrastinating.

And a Shiny New Toy can't help you savor every moment of life.

Instead, you need a productivity system that aligns all your activities with your values.

Supercharge Your Productivity is a live 4-week course that will help you re-architect the life of your dreams, while saving you time and growing your career.

👉 Enroll in Supercharge Your Productivity (and receive $498 in bonuses)​

And if you enroll by January 20th (Noon EST) you’ll receive our two most popular courses (a bonus valued at $498): The GTD Power-Pack and The Fulfilling Path to Financial Independence.

IF you have any questions, our team is here standing by.

With gratitude,

Khe and the SYP team

PS We're hosting a free event where you can Meet Our Students today (Wednesday, 1/19) at 12:00 pm EST. Ask your questions about the course and hear first hand how it has transformed their lives. Simply click here to sign up for free.

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