They say you can’t create in a vacuum. It’s probably true. But as with most aphorisms, its opposite is as valid: you can’t create when pummeled with unending high-pressure noise.
With that in mind I’ve moved myself away from internet inputs in a formal way, announcing and enforcing strict limits on when I allow myself to worry about incoming emails, or blogs, or the hundreds of other information-rich but meaning-spare electronic minutae that had been dominating my time.
I still leave Outlook turned on all day. I still compose e-mails at any hour. But except during narrow windows of the morning and afternoon, I leave Outlook in the Task-list or Calendar views. As the Quebecers say, je me souviens.