Kingdom Journalism

Never Check Email in the Morning

• Posted by Steve K. on April 28th, 2007 filed in Getting Things Done
• 1 Comment »

Phil Cooke writes, “In her terrific book Never Check Your Email in the Morning, Judy Morgenstern teaches that it’s a mistake to sit down at your desk first thing in the morning and start with your email. I know from experience that if you do, you’ll suddenly realize that it’s 11:30 a.m. and you’re still writing and responding. It sucks you into the message vortex and without realizing it, you’ve blown 2-3 hours of your day. Instead, Morgenstern teaches you should sit down at your desk and accomplish the most important thing you have to do that day. Then, once you done that, check your email.”

This is, admittedly, one of the hardest things to do, as a communication person. Email is communication, and thus, perceived (at least by me) as one of the most important things we can do on a day-to-day basis, right? But Morganstern is the one who’s right. I’ve started implementing this approach, and it’s really helping me get things done, be more efficient and effective.

Of course, it helps to scan your inbox for “urgent” looking stuff before diving into that big project/task, but then the discipline is to put email on hold until that other thing is done—even if it’s just one thing.

(HT: Phil Cooke)