What determines your workload for the day?
Is it your boss?
Your colleagues and clients?
Or is it your inbox and calendar?

For many people, email dictates how busy we are in a given day. More email, more work. But the trickiest part of emailing is that we’re not in control at all about the timing or scoping of what comes in.

If we’re not conscious, we can get sucked into the trap of productive procrastination.
By sitting in our inbox and making sure every email gets read, responded, and filed, we’re busy, yes, but not always doing our most important work.

It feels productive to be answering emails as soon as they come in, but it’s a form of procrastination.

Playing inbox defense means not actively choosing what to work on. Not prioritizing. Not creating space for yourself.

Not being in control of our workload each day can take a toll on our relationship to work. The more independence and control we feel about what we choose to work on every day, the better we feel about our work.

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

If we spend our days just answering emails and responding to Slacks,  we end up spending our lives and our careers doing shallow work. We’ll always be busy and continue at a low-grade levell of productivity.

But at the end of the day, we’re just procrastinating on the deep work we should be doing. If we can make progress on our important work , it will make us feel not just productive but accomplished, rewarded, and fulfilled in our days, years, and careers.

Play more offense.

Caveday is a company aimed at improving your relationship to work. We write regular posts on Medium and send out monthly newsletters with productivity tips, life hacks, and recommendations. Sign up for the mailing list here.

Jake Kahana is a cofounder of Caveday. Sign up for his personal emails, called “The Email Refrigerator” here.