I don’t know about you, but the first thing I do when I arrive at work is check my email.  In fact, I spend a considerable amount of time at the beginning of my workday checking the over 100 emails I receive daily.

It is a habit I have fallen into over time.

But it doesn’t stop there.

I also check my email frequently throughout the day to handle anything important that pops up.

I now realize there is a better way.

A Better Way

I stumbled on the better way out of necessity.

You see, I noticed that I have difficulty focusing on my work in the early afternoon, which seems to collide with my need to concentrate on important tasks that take a considerable amount of time and thought.

That was a big problem for me.

I recently ran across an article that mentioned the work of Dr. Ron Friedman, Ph.D.  In the article, Dr. Friedman discusses many essential aspects of developing daily routines to be more productive.

He also has a book titled, “The Best Place to Work.”  I haven’t read it yet, but it looks like a good read.

Although he discusses many topics in the article, I am only focusing on his thoughts on the morning routine as it relates to email.

According to Dr. Friedman, the first three hours of our day is the most productive.  “Typically, we have a window of about three hours where we’re really, really focused. We’re able to have some strong contributions in terms of planning, in terms of thinking, in terms of speaking well.”

So the first three hours of our day appear to be the most productive.  Our minds are the most focused they will be all day, yet we spend this critical time checking our email.

Dr. Friedman suggests checking email and voicemail is responding to other people’s priorities rather than addressing our own.

“And if we end up squandering those first three hours reacting to other people’s priorities for us, which is ultimately what voice mail, or email is, is a list of other people’s requests for our time, that ends up using up our best hours and we’re not quite as effective as we could be.”

Be Proactive Instead

If we spend our best time checking emails and responding to other people’s priorities, then we are left with our least productive time to be proactive with our own work.

Instead of following this path, we should be proactive first thing in the morning when our mind is at its sharpest.  We can focus on the most important tasks we have to complete.  Reports, presentations and deep thinking about important issues should be completed during the first few hours of work.

Dr. Friedman shared this reactive vs. proactive mindset.  “The other a major reason being response first thing is not a good idea is because it puts you in a reactive mindset. So you’re looking outward for direction, rather than looking inward. And switching from a proactive to a reactive mindset is easy, but doing the reverse is much, much harder.”

Following this line of thinking, it makes sense to check our email later in the day.  We reserve our most important work for when we are the sharpest and leave the reactive type of work, email response, for later.

I have to pause here a moment and offer a confession.

As much as I believe I can become more productive by changing this habit, I have found the switch to be much more difficult than I expected.

I am a work in progress.

Typical Excuses

I have some good excuses for this resistance.  Here is a short list of them in no particular order.

• I might miss an important email
• I want to be responsive to any requests
• I can avoid a phone call from some people if I respond promptly to their email
• I might get busy or distracted later and forget to check my email

I could probably come up with a few more.  However, I think you get my point.  I am not minimizing these excuses or concerns.  Some of them are legitimate concerns.  Still, I believe the benefits of changing the habit of checking your email when you get to work to check it after completing your more essential tasks in the morning outweighs these potential problems.

I have improved my productivity when I have completed the tasks that need more focus to the beginning of my day.  In fact, I have noticed I get these tasks completed much faster in the morning because I can concentrate on them more effectively.

Conclusion

I challenge you to try to make this change for a few days and see if you notice any improvement in your productivity.

I would love to hear back from you and find out if it made a difference.

By checking your email AFTER you spend your first 2-3 hours working on your critical tasks, I believe your productivity will soar, and you will never go back.

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