Creating a Dent in the Universe: 3 Quirky Rules

Posted on by

IMG_0095

If you are ready for a bold, life-changing experiment, read on.  I’ve been thinking a lot about how to change things… in the outside world and in myself.  As we all know, changing anything – especially our habits and thinking, is not easy.  Steve Jobs was a fierce entrepreneur, creative thinker, and brilliant product maker and with his skills and tenacity, he was able to put a dent in the universe.  

So how can we make our own mark in the universe, change something about how the world works for the better?  How do we move beyond norms, routines, and society-influenced ways of thinking and really change something about how the world works for the better?  Inspired by some excellent speakers I’ve recently heard, inspiring articles/books I’ve read and by my own random musings,  I started running some self-imposed life experiments… which had led me to create these three quirky rules for making change:

Sejal’s 3 Rules for Creating a Dent in the Universe:

1.  Play in the Sandbox.  What does this mean?  Engage people you meet in a warm, friendly way.  Whether it’s holding a door open for someone or smiling at a colleague.  The way I’ve been practicing this is I’ve started pretending the norm in elevators or in hallways isn’t to look down or look away, but to look the person in the eye and say hello, or just smile.  I made up my own norm and started following it.  The way that “playing in the sandbox” helps you make a dent in the universe is not just that you become a more friendly person or help brighten someone’s day (both which are fantastic by-products), but it helps you start breaking the rules.  With something as simple as saying hello, you begin going against the norm.  It feels weird at first and it make make you feel uncomfortable or awkward.  But as you make that your normal practice, you become comfortable in being un-normal. That is where the magic lies.  Other people who believe in playing in the sandbox notice and start connecting with you.  People try and help you.  You become more confident in your new way of seeing and influencing the world.  So say hello or reach out when the norm is to not.  Or find your own norm to break.  And watch what happens. (Credit: This concept was inspired by a workshop I attended called Stage Time Speaker Training and, in particular, by an awesome presentation of this idea by Jenny Campbell.  Thank you Jenny!)

2.  Don’t let not having someone to go with stop you.  I’ve found we often deprive ourselves of fantastic event and experience opportunities because we don’t have someone to go with.  Maybe no one is interested, your friends are busy, or you just found out about a great event and can’t find someone to go with at the last minute.  Whatever the reason, be brave and go it alone.  It’s not easy… and that’s because society expects us to do things with people.  But imagine the learning and enjoyment that gets missed because of this norm.  Know that the universe and other people will be there when you go.  You just have to be open to the possibility and not let yourself feel embarrassed or out of place.  Start letting go of the notion of embarasment or failure… often it’s a roadblock that keeps us from making our most significant impact in the world.  Be bold and confident… and when you go to the event or trip or restaurant, refer to Rule 1, play in the sandbox!  Get comfortable in being a bit uncomfortable.  You’ll start owning the feeling.

3.  Don’t take the long way.  Even though most people are very tech savvy, there are always apps we don’t know about, tech shortcuts we’ve been meaning to learn, and tricks and strategies that can help us do things more easily or efficiently.  Time is precious and your mind can learn new things even though it can feel overwhelming.  Don’t be intimidated by the time it will take to research a shortcut or learn how to do something new.  Ask friends, family, or colleagues what tools they use or if they know a better way.  We frequently become comfortable with the systems and habits we have in place – even though we know there is probably a better way.  Keep your mind agile and use the precious time you save to dream bigger and build faster..  Making a dent is going to take time, so start streamlining your systems.

I challenge you to try these rules.  You may be closer than you think to changing the world.

Entrepreneurship: The Dartboard/Artistry Paradigm

Posted on by

photo-41

One excellent skill that entrepreneurs develop over time is the ability to handle tough criticism.  The evolution of this skill might go something like this:

Corporate world: your boss/colleague/department head says something critical of your work.  You go home and cry, feel like quitting, start telling yourself you’re not good enough.  You think that maybe starting a business will be better.  No one to report to or criticize you.  And anyway, your work is practically flawless.

You start a product or service-based business.

(One year later.)

(Entrepreneurship, the early stage)  A client says something critical of your work.  You go home and cry, feel like shutting down your business, tell yourself you’re not good enough.  You remind yourself not to work with that client.

But you know you started something on your own for a reason.  So you hang in there and continue working hard.

(Entrepreneurship, mid stage)  You’ve handled many different types of client complaints and client personality types by now.  You know how to easily handle some complaints.  Others feel like new challenges that your slowly developed confidence can handle.  And for some – well, you go home and cry, feel like shutting down the business, tell yourself you’re not good enough.  You may be using more extreme profanities by now.  And you possibly have purchased a dartboard.

(Entrepreneurship, later in the process) A client says something critical of your work.  You are charged with confidence.  You’ve worked hard in the trenches and have learned your craft.  You believe in your product or service.  Crying now feels like a waste of time and energy.  Plus you don’t have time for it anyway.  You have come to appreciate when your clients are critical of your work, especially when your best clients give you meaningful, even tough criticism.  In short, you now want them to tear apart your work.  Because you can handle it.  It helps you improve your processes or informs you of shortcomings in your product you either hadn’t seen or haven’t had time to address yet.  And somehow, criticism is just easier to take now.  Maybe it’s because you’re still standing and you know what it took to get here.  Or you know that you can still finish the story with a happy, appreciative client.

(Entrepreneurship, in the elite phase)  You start craving becoming better.  You compete against how good your company can be.  You’ve developed a truly tough skin which now allows you to ask a happy client – “what could we do better next time?”, “what would make our service more valuable (or fun or effective or helpful) for you?”.

And that’s where you get to artistry.

Hang in there through the criticism.  It is the invisible teacher that will transform you into an artist and expert.

Six Ways to create your own Chic Wall Art!

Posted on by

securedownload-7

securedownload-6


As a home stager/interior decorator, I figured it was probably time to throw in some design blog posts.  After taking a bit of a decorating breather, I realized what I was craving was to evolve from the person moving furniture, hanging up artwork, and scrubbing down countertops to the person teaching people how to do these things and create a fabulous finished look in their own home.

So today’s theme is creating customized wall art.  I’ve been in many homes where families have great family photos or pictures of places they’ve visited displayed on their living room walls.  The problem I’ve found – is sometimes it’s done beautifully and sometimes, well they’ve fallen short of achieving the chic effect they were probably after.

So get your camera, paint brushes, and toolbox.  Here are a here are 6 ideas that will help you create your own designer wall art!

1.  Paint your own wall art.  If you’ve always thought you had a bit of Van Gogh in you, go to your nearest art supply store (try Michaels, JoAnne’s Fabrics, or Aaron Brothers) and buy a blank pre-stretched canvas.  Decide on the space you are painting this piece for (a small canvas size to dress up your office cubicle, or a extra large canvas if you are going to be brave and paint a master piece for above your bed.)  Buy some acrylic paints in a few colors you’d like to paint with (they could be colors that match your target room’s color scheme) and a paint brushes.  Spend some time painting a scene or person or an abstract piece.  It’s fantastic creative therapy and will help you get your artistic juices going.

2.  Create a stylish family photo wall.  The key here is choosing a limited amount of pictures – pick your absolute best or quirky photos.  Having too many will dilute the impact of a great photo gallery.  Think of how museums do it – they display a few pieces on large walls so each piece has lots of breathing room around it.  Space can instantly make a simple piece into a creative master piece.  The second key element of a chic wall gallery is standardization.  Pick one item to standardize – maybe you can have different sized photos but all in the same type of frame.  Or you can pick photos that are all the same size (maybe 4×6, 5×7, or even 8×10 or larger for a powerful visual statement).  I created this type of gallery for a client who had a great space in an upstairs hallway for her family photos.  We didn’t have the time or budget to buy new matching frames so we took the best existing photos and created a wall collage of well-spaced pictures.  So, ideally the rules for a chic look are:

    1. All same color or style photo frames (black, white, or silver work beautifully.)
    2. All same size photos (optional)
    3. Decide if you want a very symmetrical (think of an art studio where art pieces are hung at regular intervals with fishing line) or a puzzle style display wall where different sized photos are mapped out to create a block of photos.  For the puzzle style display, mentally create a square or rectangle on the wall  and puzzle fit all of your photos into this imaginary space.  It may help to take a pencil and outline the space on the wall and then map out your layout.  A very important tip for a designer look is to leave an equal amount of space between each picture in the symmetrical photo gallery or to have equally spaced borders around each photo in the puzzle layout.  This is critical!
    4. Take your measurements and mark your final photos spots with pencil on the wall.
    5. The key to chic-ness here is not to have family photos all over the house.  Pool all your photos and pick a good-sized wall for your gallery.  It makes a fun gathering spot during get-togethers.  (Stairway walls, a blank wall in your living room or bedroom, or a hallway wall are ideal spots to pick.)

3.  Art-ify your own spectacular photos.  Use a fantastic scenic photo (cityscape, countryside, a cool sign or beautiful monument) that you have taken and have it printed on canvas.  Have the canvas stretched and mounted on a wooden frame so it is ready to hang.  This is a great way to turn your digital photos into stylish artwork.  You can do this with a series of similar-theme photos or just one amazing shot.  The best part is – when people compliment the artwork – you get to take credit for it!  Many online photo printing shops do canvas printing and as well as Kinkos.  In case you don’t have a money shot ready, take your digital camera, a free Sunday afternoon, and walk or drive to your favorite scenic spot, and capture away.  Focus on shooting scenes that will move and inspire you.  My team did this for a client using a spectacular cityscape photo she took in Hong Kong.  We printed the photo in large size and color and framed it with white matting and a black minimalist frame for the wall space above her flatscreen TV.

4.  Stencil away!  This idea is perfect for kids rooms, craft rooms, or offices.  Stencils can be bought at any craft store and you can get them in lettering or fun designs (flowers, abstract designs, etc).  My advice is don’t overdo it with the stencils.  Pick a few words or a design you want and choose a small section of your wall and that way the effect will carry more weight.  For one client of mine who was passionate about Japanese language, we stenciled 3 Japanese characters (“Water”, “Dream”, and “Love”) onto a bedroom wall with spotlights installed hitting each character.

5.  Create chic fabric art.  For anyone passionate about textiles, color, and abstract patterns (this is for all you fashion design folks), another way to create custom art is to purchase large squares of your favorite fabrics from a fabric store.  These fabric pieces can be mounted onto a wood frame (similar to canvas artwork) and you can create a fabric gallery that is very easy to hang.  Choose fabrics in solids and patterns with colors that coordinate with your room theme.  Or for a chic effect, choose solid bold colors (imagine bright orange, yellow, and red) or keep your colors to black and white for a modern urban look.  This type of art presentation looks fantastic above a living room couch, above a bed, or in an office.  A few tips: for sheer or light fabrics, you may have to purchase a solid matching color as a liner so the wall does not show through the back.  We created this effect for an Acupuncturist’ office.  We used some beautiful maroon drapery fabric that had some texture and matched the office style, held it stretched tightly, and stapled it onto a large canvas piece.  To save money, we purchased the framed canvas that had already been painted on from Goodwill.  For a mini-version of this look, take your favorite scarf, add a matching backing material, and staple it onto a matching sized plywood piece or framed canvas.

6.  Posterize It.  If you don’t have the time or energy to paint your own art, or climb on a ladder to stencil some words on your wall, or get a photo printed on canvas, a very chic way to create custom art is to use posters and frame the images.  Buy a series of posters or printed art and frames to match the style and size of your space.  Personally I love cutting up posters or pre-printed art (or photos from black and white photography books!) and putting them in frames that come with matting.  By cutting up only the portion of the poster image you want to use, the piece will look less poster-y and more like a real photo print.  And that will give you a very high end look for an affordable price.  This type of custom art looks fantastic in a bathroom, kitchen, or hallway.  We did this for a client with a series of floral posters.  We put the cut up images in black frames and displayed them in a bathroom for an instant makeover.

Hopefully your creative juices are flowing and you are ready to create some wow-worthy art! Please share your projects and ideas here, I’d love to hear about them!

No one Said it Would be Easy. But I’m telling you it’s going to be hard.

Posted on by

I’d say, in my case of entrepreneurship, ignorance may have been bliss.  When I started on my business endeavor, to be honest, I hadn’t thought very far ahead.  All I knew was I thought I was decently creative, had good ideas on how to make spaces feel stylish, chic, and fun, and I had a real desire to help people refresh their spaces to bring out the best in themselves and their lives.

I didn’t know what I was going to charge, how I would find my clients, if I’d survive, or what my 6-month, 1 year, 5 year, 10 and 15 year goals were.  Looking back, I was pretty naive.  And if we really were being honest, I didn’t have a business plan.  I just got started and thought things would work themselves out.  I’m sure thinking through things would have helped me get going faster, become more profitable, and be more focused and confident in my endeavor.   But… I didn’t.

As I look back, it’s been an incredibly educational and challenging journey.  More than what I’ve learned about the business world, I would say I have learned a tremendous amount about myself – my vision, my fears, my motivations, my insecurities, my strengths, and my weaknesses.  I am sure I would have learned much of this had I continued working in the corporate world – but something about putting your stake in the ground, however small or large, makes you both extremely vulnerable and surprisingly committed.  And out of this dichotomy, your mind and soul become tested routinely.  Everyday, with every project or client, you face your strengths and weaknesses.  You face having to do a lot, often with little funds, limited energy, and often with little pre-established reputation or credibility.  Meanwhile, you have to keep your confidence high (because everyone knows clients never hire the desperate business owner), your work quality even higher, follow up thoroughly with past clients, and continuously woo potential new clients.

As they say, nobody said it was going to be easy.  But I never really stopped to think (or possibly tuned out any warnings about) how hard entrepreneurship would be.  The overnight success story is rare.  Even if your idea is amazing, your product or service is excellent, it takes time to ramp up, get the world out, and gain supporters and clients over the noise of your competitors… it takes time to find the right vendors, the right team, learn about how to lead your team, to patch up your ego after an unhappy client, to make it past operating at a loss, to breaking even, to – hopefully – making a profit (so that profit can go back into the list of things you’ve been putting off doing for your business).

So I’d have to say – for anyone who doesn’t mind a spoiler – it’s going to be hard.  Very hard.  I’ve been blogging about productivity hacks, communication hacks, ways to test out your passion, the most amazing things about entrepreneurship, and the importance of doing what you love.  But I haven’t been entirely truthful.  All those things will help, but its going to take everything you have.

How do you know you’re ready for the difficult journey ahead?  A journey that won’t tell you, in advance, the things you will have to give up and the humility it will bring you to.  You just know.  You will have a feeling or desire to want to embark on this journey.  And the unpredictability of the journey won’t scare you.   That’s when you know you’re ready.  You’ll have a feeling that you have nothing to lose and a profound belief in your idea, your talent, or maybe simply in yourself – and that you’ll figure out the rest along the way.  That you’ll change course and adjust as you need to.

Entrepreneurship changes you.  Mostly for the better, but unfortunately, the difficulty of it (especially in a difficult economy) also changes you for the negative.  To me – though I have absolutely loved the work I’ve been doing – the running of the business and survival aspect has felt like going through battle.  But you do it because you are committed – to yourself, your idea, or maybe your deep longing for freedom and autonomy.  And you are willing to pay the price.

As I tell my friends, you will know when the time is right.  It’s a feeling that is so strong, you will be ready to take the leap with hardly a look back.  And when the time is right, go for it.  Because I’m convinced it is critical for us – the world – to experience a piece of the thing you love – whether it’s something you have created or built or written or painted or sung or played.  None of this is easy.  It sounds easy when you read about it or see it on TV.  It’s not.  You have to believe deep deep down inside you are going to be successful.  That you are going to “make it”.  You may not be able to picture what that success will look like, but that intuition must be there.

“And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.” ~ Neil Gaiman (English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theater and films)

Consider yourself warned, but more importantly – enlightened.

4 Simple Ways to Find Your Effortless Motivation

Posted on by

IMG_1357

This is the time of year we start getting excited for a clean slate.  A chance to start fresh in the new year and set goals or resolutions or –  at least start giving some thought to what we’d like to try to achieve next year.  And a lot of this comes down to the idea of motivation.  If there are things we wish we were doing but aren’t, we need to be motivated  to do them right?  The problem is that motivation, is an elusive, intangible, quirky, sometimes wonderful, sometimes not so wonderful, thing.  One minute it’s great – you’re envisioning your upcoming beach body as you happily skip to the gym every day for a few weeks, and the next minute, Motivation has left you for someone else while you are contemplating a burger, french fries, and well, what the heck – a chocolate milkshake.  What changed?

I don’t have a neuroscience or psychology answer to why motivation comes and goes for all of us but I have some advice based on my experience decorating and decluttering homes.  It’s a random connection but it makes sense, trust me.

I recently started thinking about the idea of Effortless Motivation.  I mean, having or keeping motivation is hard because it takes so much work.  But is there a way to make it light and easy?  I’m convinced there is!

How do I know there is such a thing?  Because I have personally experienced it.  My proof is writing this blog.  For the past five years, I’ve wanted to blog regularly.  I’ve started five different blogs in an attempt to pick the right name, the right topic, the right blogging platform, the right posting frequency, and then motivate myself to start blogging.  And keep blogging.  Each attempt lasted a few days to a few weeks and then, as we all often find, my motivation was gone.  Either I didn’t have the time or energy, didn’t like my blog topic enough to keep writing, or just didn’t have the burning desire and excitement to write.  I find this among people I know – we all have business ideas we start working on but lose steam, workout routines that only last for awhile, writing goals that fall by the wayside, or great goals like trying to achieve a better work/life balance that end up taking too much effort and we go back to our normal routines.

Somehow, though, with this blog, it’s been different.  I started this blog about four months ago after tinkering around ideas of what topics I wanted to write about and share.  I had a burning desire to share some of the interesting and quirky lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur.  I wanted to share the big lessons and also the very random things I’ve learned along the way.  Things that no one could have taught me – great moments and very difficult moments.  And I decided I also wanted to write about ideas I’ve had over the years (product ideas, new concepts, and various designs floating around in my head).

With this set of subjects, I’ve found that I’ve nailed the sweet spot of the things I love thinking about and so, my motivation to write is still going strong.  In fact, I honestly can’t wait to write.  I get excited each time I sit down with my laptop, open up my blog writing screen and either start writing a fresh new post or go back and edit one I have in the works.  This is the closest I’ve felt to Effortless Motivation.  So believe me, it exists.

So to help you out, here are 4 Simple Ways to Find Your Effortless Motivation:

1.  Pare down the number of things you are working on at one time.

As most life/business/productivity coaches tell us, in order to achieve our goals, we need to have fewer goals at a time so we can focus on them.  Too many goals and objectives become like clutter in our mind and our energy gets dissipated going from one thing to the next.

Leo Babuta, in his book, The Power of Less, suggests just having one large goal at a time (ideally).  I agree with this idea – or it can be modified to having a few very focused goals at a time.  The more you try to accomplish at once, the less motivated you become for any one thing.

2.  Pick the Exact Right Goal.  It’s kind of like picking the exact right spot to drill for oil or pan for gold.  It takes some deep intuitive work, thinking, and planning.

When the goal you pick is the Exact Right Goal – i.e. – something you intuitively truly want to achieve and have the resources you need to achieve it, you’ll find that the motivation comes easily and that you don’t have to fight procrastination.  In fact, you may find yourself procrastinating other things to keep moving forward on this one.  (This is true with my blogging.  Let’s just say I haven’t finished my Christmas shopping and today is December 22nd.  But I have about 3 posts I can’t wait to finish writing.)

Identifying the right goal takes some deep soul searching.  Pay attention to what you “feel” like doing and this “feeling” will keep you on the forward path.

3.  Postpone or delete goals that haven’t reached their ripeness yet.  (This is the corollary to picking the Exact Right Goal).

Sometimes there are goals you want to achieve, but your desire to achieve them is not at its strongest.  Working on this type of goal often results in a high level of energy for a short amount of time but your motivation starts waning as you start hitting roadblocks.  It’s fine to get going on these goals but you will soon start being able to differentiate the Exact Right Goals from the I Really Want to (or Should Want to) Achieve This.

A lot of things we think we want to do only have so much depth to them and then the tank of motivation/true desire to reach the goal runs out.  If that happens, it’s totally fine.  Don’t feel bad about it.  Sometimes you don’t know how motivated you are until you start working on something and realize you don’t want it that badly after all.  There is actually a weirdly beneficial part of obstacles and failure.  They force you to frequently re-commit to or exit your path toward a goal.

These goals may eventually become Exact Right Goals at a future time or they may fall off your master list.

4.  Make sure you have the time, not make the time.

I’ve been able to start blogging regularly after cutting out a lot of things from my life and schedule.  Of course I’d love to be doing all those other things I want to do (playing basketball, socializing, keeping my home super organized, doing my business marketing, attending great events and workshops, etc) but the truth is, I wouldn’t be able to write with the focus and regularity that I have been if all those activities were still on my plate.  So for now, my goal is blogging regularly along with a few other important things.  But that’s it.

For most of us, something (or multiple things) in our schedules will need to probably come out if we truly want to make progress on a given goal.  It goes back to the idea of decluttering.  If you don’t cut some major things out and add a new goal to your list (such as working out), you may find you can make time for it for awhile but your other activities will start busying up your day and the energy required to continue “making” the time will slowly outweigh your motivation to do so.  By freeing up time and resources, you can now easily focus on your new goal.

So do some deep thinking, clear out your schedule, and pick your Exact Right Goal.  It may take some trial and error but you will love the feeling of hitting your groove.  Here’s wishing you an abundance of Effortless Motivation throughout 2013 and a list of amazing accomplishments!

Tribute to Sandy Hook Elementary, Newtown CT. We are with you.

Posted on by

Image

“We gather here in memory of twenty beautiful children and six remarkable adults. They lost their lives in a school that could have been any school; in a quiet town full of good and decent people that could be any town in America…

Dawn Hochsprung and Mary Sherlach, Vicki Soto, Lauren Rousseau, Rachel Davino and Anne Marie Murphy — they responded as we all hope we might respond in such terrifying circumstances — with courage and with love, giving their lives to protect the children in their care.

Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison.

God has called them all home. For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on, and make our country worthy of their memory.“

-President Barack Obama, December 16, 2012 (excerpts)

Idea Share: Managing e-mail overload by… adding Inbox page breaks

Posted on by

securedownload

Image

Yesterday I decided to tackle my e-mail clutter.  I have 2 main e-mail accounts I use, one is for work/business and one is for personal e-mail.  I have two additional accounts but I use those so rarely that keeping them organized is pretty straightforward.  The account I decided to tackle yesterday was my work/business account.  In my inbox were e-mails that went as far back as this past March (2012).  I have been pretty good about sporadically filing or deleting items that have been taken care of but inevitably there comes a point where I get behind and the e-mails pile up.  In particular, the 2nd string type e-mails (i.e. not super urgent, things I need to think about before I reply, nice to work on-type projects and collaborations, etc) seem to be the ones that linger over months (and months).

When I started sorting through my inbox, I wanted to tackle all the e-mails from this month and last month (Nov/Dec) before I worked my way back to March through October e-mails.  As I started the process of reading and sorting, I came to a revelation.  With e-mail inboxes (especially if you’re backlogged like I usually am:), there is no reward or stopping point.  One month’s e-mails flow directly into the previous months e-mails etc because inboxes – for the most part- are designed that way.  When I had finished processing my December e-mails, I didn’t get to see a neat and tidy blank screen.  There was no momentary feeling of accomplishment – like you feel when you’ve cleaned up your room or your desk.  I still was faced with the same look as before I started – but now it was all the e-mails from November and prior.  So, the feeling of overwhelm pretty much remained.

And that’s what makes sorting and deleting e-mails so tiring and overwhelming.  So I thought, what if e-mail service providers (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Outlook, etc) gave us an Inbox “page break”?  It could be a page break pre-set by them, say, a by-month page break so all e-mails from the next month appear on another page (still in your inbox).  Or it could be  a page break that could be inserted by us – so maybe you want to just focus on the last couple weeks e-mails without the clutter of everything else.  You could insert a page break after the last e-mail that’s in the batch you want to work on and the rest would be rolled to the next page.

Outlook has something like this to an extent as it creates different sections for e-mails (with titles like “Last Week”, “Two Weeks Ago”, “Last Month”, and “Older” if I remember correctly).  This is definitely one step closer but in my view, you can best focus when just the material you want to work with you is in front of you.  (See my post “Pure-tasking, the opposite of multi-tasking.  Give It a Shot.  http://siliconvalleyideagirl.com/2012/11/13/pure-tasking-the-opposite-of-multi-tasking-give-it-a-shot/).  So by moving the non-essential items to a different page, you can “get through” the current set of e-mails and get to the feeling of accomplishment when all have been replied to, filed, or deleted as needed.  Like checking off items on a to do list.

I never thought I’d be so passionate about a simple page break but I think it has the potential to change our e-mail productivity.