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August 2018

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  • Fear This Instead Of Failure
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May 2018

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April 2018

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March 2018

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Productivity Through Self Denial?

September 7th, 2012 - by Robby Slaughter

A venture capitalist is supposed to love new technology, right? But one VC has shunned one of the more common modern conveniences: email access on his mobile phone.

Harj Taggar writes:.

I did this mostly out of curiousity around two questions; could I actually do it given how addicted to checking my email I was and what consequences would it have in my daily life? The first is easily answered, it’s been six months and I still don’t have easy access to email on my phone. The adjustment process was surprisingly difficult though. During the first few days I was somewhat shocked by how anxious it made me not being able to constantly check my email. I actually became irritable and frustrated. I became aware of just how habitual it had become to open up the Mail app every spare second I had. This feeling passed and was gradually replaced by a feeling of liberation.

email failure
Photo © Flickr User Anthony Albright

What’s happened to Taggar as a result of this experiment? Over the long term, he reports some interesting conclusions:

The consequences have been interesting and vary from obvious to non obvious. Mostly obviously, I’ve become much slower at replying email.

This might seem like a second failure on top of his first round of self-denial. Now that the entrepreneur won’t reply to messages on his phone, he’s presumably less responsive overall.

But Taggar also notes a curious, unexpected advantage:

The least obvious consequence has been the lengthening of my concentration span, even when I’m at my desk with easy access to my email.

Failure is the secret to success. Sometimes it makes sense to do the opposite of what society says we’re supposed to do. Maybe the best way to be an effective, high-tech venture capitalist is to go lo-tech some of the time.

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