I just received the following auto-reply:
I currently have no home internet service, and so may not be able to answer your message swiftly. Thank you for your patience.
This is sort of funny, partly because of the implied expectation that everyone has home internet service, and partly because I send him the message at around noon in his time zone on a Monday, so I wouldn't expect him to be at home anyway!
This also reminds me that I'm toying with the idea of removing myself from the internet for a period of three days each week, so I can get more work done. I have enough backlog blog entries that I could still leave timed posts every day, so that wouldn't be a problem.
Of course, I could start by taking just one day internet-free and seeing how it goes, but there's something appealing about committing to the three-days-a-week policy. Or maybe I could stay on skype (that way, my postdocs could check my email and notify me if something really important happens) but stay completely removed from browser and email. I'm still not sure what to do on this one.
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If it's just particular parts of the Internet slowing you down, I recommend the LeechBlock browser extension. Starting with a dump of my feed reader, I gave it a big list of my distractions. You can set it up to work in a number of ways, including allowing X minutes per day during work hours. Even better, it has "lockdown mode", where I say that for the next Y hours, I want to focus.
As to email, I find the "Inbox Zero" approach helps a lot. The thing that draws me back is novelty, but limiting each email to no more than 2 minutes of time and then filing it away keeps me from spending too much time.
"my postdocs could check my email" - Surely your postdocs are employed to do research? If you want someone else to check your email you should employ a secretary or PA!
William: Good point about novelty. I'm also thinking about buying the newspaper more often, then when I want novelty I can read the paper instead of browsing the web.
Roger: I was just kidding about that one. Intonation is notoriously difficult to convey in typed speech (and I'm not about to start using those sideways smiley faces).