Never check email in the morning?

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Everyone and his brother says we should never check email in the morning. They say that doing so allows others to dictate our morning tasks and we should instead focus on our pre-determined agenda.

But I do check email in the morning. Voice mail, too.

Checking email and voice mail lets me scope out and plan my day. Yes, my task list and calendar show me the important things I will be doing but emails and messages can be important, too.

But while I check email and messages in the morning I don’t respond to them in the morning. I do that after I get my other work done.

My morning routine includes going through my inbox, purging junk, and starring (gmail) important emails that require a response. When I’m done, I know how many emails I will need to respond to later that day. If there is work to do associated with those emails, I know that, too.

Same thing with phone messages. I write down who called and why and call them back later.

And hey, emergencies happen. While that’s rare for me today, I feel better knowing that I’ve made sure everything is okay. That’s better than ignoring the outside world for several hours and wondering if I’m missing something important.

Want to know another secret? Don’t tell anyone but I also check email throughout the day. Many times, in fact. Texts, too.

Yikes. Do I break every rule in the friggin book?

Guess so.

Anyway, that’s what works for me. Your mileage may vary.

I use Evernote to organize all of my tasks and projects. Go look

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Comments

  1. Works for me too 🙂 Experts who tell you to only check email twice a day still live in a world where people only “communicate” by phone.