
What I learned from time away from the Internet and email - Garbage
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/what-i-learned-from-time-away-from-the-internet-and-email/
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nakedrobot2
"email just isn’t scalable." Well of course not! But is that a reason not to
respond to people? No. One of the rudest behaviors I've seen from people is
not responding to email. I get just as much email as you - promise! - but I
really do try to respond to everything. If you're not going to respond, then
for the love of god, have an auto-reply that says so.

Note: I'm not accusing Mr. Cutts of not responding to emails... only that I
notice it happening a lot with other people, ESPECIALLY googlers for some
reason.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
I've tried auto-replies. People get even more offended by that. Here's someone
that posted after getting an auto-reply in 2007:
[http://www.ginside.com/2007/1186/matt-cutts-doesnt-
respond-t...](http://www.ginside.com/2007/1186/matt-cutts-doesnt-respond-to-e-
mail-anymore/) . He was angry because he thought the battle against paid links
was useless, and wanted me to email him back to justify our efforts on paid
links. His conclusion? "When I met up with Matt at SES San Jose, he seemed
like a cool guy, but I guess this [getting an auto-reply] proves my positive-
assumptions wrong."

Don't get me wrong. I like Jonathan (the author of the blog) and stopped by
his blog to leave a comment to answer his question.

But if you asked a neutral third party, "Which is better? To spend your time
working on new algorithms for paid links? To write blog posts or make videos
about paid links? Or to reply to emails justifying working on paid links?" I
think the the neutral party would put replying to emails about paid links at
the bottom of the priority list.

And the amount of email at Google is pretty epic. Even after trying to reduce
my email load through all the conventional methods like unsubscribing from
newsletters, my mail storage is over 50 gigabytes.

So there may not be a good conventional answer to the email issue for me. I
really don't want to be rude by not responding to emails, but I also believe I
should also be working on the biggest-impact things I can.

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MordinSolus
If you're on a Mac and are rather addicted to these sorts of websites,
SelfControl (funny name) can be used to block sites for however long you want
after some tweaking. I use it when I notice myself opening a new tab in the
browser and instinctively going for the "r" or "h" keys.

I too notice that when I block these sorts of websites, even though I still
have access on my phone, I start reading a lot more and getting more stuff
done. Now that I think about it, I should try the 30 day challenge. The most
I've gone is 15 days. Peace out!

~~~
lis
/etc/hosts does the trick for me. I'm also noticing that whenever I am stuck
solving a problem I open a new tab, starting to type one of my self-forbidden
websites. Blocking it completely helps :)

I've banned social networking / news reading to my phone, so I'm only doing it
when I have to wait, e.g. on a train.

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DanielBMarkham
Congrats to Matt for trying new stuff!

I'm a bit confused, though. I understand that making a video or publishing can
help many more people than responding to emails. What I don't get is how you
figure out what kinds of videos or other things to publish if you don't have
regular contact with people outside of Google. Conferences? It seemed that
Cutts was saying instead of talking to normal people, he'd just hang closer to
all his good Googley buddies. That he heard about all important stuff through
them anyway.

I don't know enough about what he does to know if that makes sense, and I'm
not sure he meant it to come out that way. Just sounded weird.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
I went ahead and updated the blog post to explain, but I'll include what I
wrote here too. Sorry if I didn't explain that clearly. I still see what
people are discussing on SEO blogs and on the Google webmaster forum. I know
the most recent trends in how blackhats try to spam Google--that's my primary
job, after all. I look through the questions and comments that people send me
on Twitter. When I put out a call for webmaster video questions, I use Google
Moderator so people can vote up questions that interest them. I keep an eye on
what flavors of spam snake oil are being marketing to newbies on various
forums ("I know Google pulled apart my last link network, but now try my
Social Rank Tout Suite product! It will automate 100% of all of your link
building!"). And lots of people at Google keep an eye open themselves and
alert me if they see issues.

So I feel like I have a pretty good feel for the pulse of what people are
talking about; it's just that I lack the time to have one-on-one conversations
with every person that emails me.

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daniel-levin
On a tangent, one thing that caught my eye is: "or February, my wife and I are
trying a gluten-free, wheat-free month to see what that’s like."

In my opinion, this is one of the highest-leverage lifestyle modifications you
can make. I started this in September 2012. In short, it helps with (chronic)
rhinitis management - my sinuses are blocked less often and I am congested
less frequently. Even though wheat-based foods aren't inherently much more
calorific than others, I have found that my net caloric intake has been
reduced by avoiding wheat-based foods. I replaced wheat-based foods with
higher quality foods - like brown rice. Using this in conjunction with regular
exercise, I have become healthier, more energised and motivated.

Starting a cycle of being healthy (exercising, eating correctly) initialises a
self-sustaining feedback loop of motivation: once I started to see results
(improved body composition, feeling more energetic) I became even more
dedicated to this cycle of living healthily. Ceasing to eat gluten-based foods
catalysed this for me.

~~~
perlgeek
If leaving out wheat helped your sinuses, it might be worth investigating if
you have a Histamine intolerance (my wife has that, and the symptoms you
described).

If you have indeed a Histamine intolerance, you'd know what other food to
avoid (for example easily spoiled fruit like strawberries), and there are
enzymes you can take if once you couldn't avoid such food.

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tquai
Inspiring! I'm glad to have read it.

After posting this comment, I'm going to start something similar: reduce
Internet usage to a minimum (checking health of my servers, etc.) for a week,
and with the free time, de-clutter. OMG the clutter is killing me. All these
little pieces of paper, things lying out, stuff I don't use... it's negatively
impacting my life. So call it a kill two birds with one stone deal.

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adjin
Being away from the computer even for a couple of hours can make you aware of
the grip it has on you.

