A Case for Checking Email First Thing in the Morning
Email can be a distraction, but sometimes it’s better to get rid of it. Harvard Business Review employee Dory Clarke says you need to check your email first in the morning.
Yes, we told you bluntly not to check your email first thing in the morning . When you do this, you start the day with someone else’s needs. You are wasting your energy answering instead of doing real work. However, sometimes it makes sense to tackle the worst tasks before the day starts – eating a frog if you like. And sometimes this frog is a letter that stays in your inbox.
Clark writes:
Believing in the gospel of “doing the things that matter first” and carrying emails to the end of the day, I found myself consistently avoiding answering certain messages because they require difficult choices that my brain found tiresome … I realized that if I I finally wanted to get rid of those messages that were lying at the bottom of my mailbox, what I needed most of all was not just time to respond; it was willpower and discernment to make correct judgments and react accordingly.
Personally, I check my email first thing in the morning for the same reason. I would rather get rid of these answers than ponder them throughout the day. Clark suggests scheduling email checking sprints of 20 minutes, similar to the Pomodoro Technique .
Of course, everyone is different, and for some it may be just a distraction preventing you from doing anything at all. However, it’s worth considering if giving up email in the morning isn’t working for you. Check out the full post below for more information.
In fact, you should check your email first in the morning | HBR