Day 3: Checking email at the start of your day is useless

I am intrigued by the concept of habit triggers or cues. Ever since I read about it in Atomic Habits, I have been looking for such cues. 

Part of my fascination is because of "feedback loops". Essentially, everything is a feedback loop. Be it positive or negative. Once you recognize the feedback loop, you can figure out the trigger point. 

For example, the simple idea of checking email as soon as you start your day. Email is designed with striking visual cues indicating your need to check. The envelope on the taskbar icon, the bold number showing unread emails once you open the app etc. Over time, our need to clear these cues led to a feedback loop of starting your day with checking email. More email meant you were needed more (by the people?). More emails checked gave a sense of completing a task, although most of the emails are useless.

The cue here are visual. I started by removing the envelop icon from the taskbar. Next I started forming a ritual of closing the email app once you are done with your day. So the next day, you control what you should do first thing, not the email app.

Will report back my findings once I have followed the above steps for some more days.