Never Check Email

I know, that's just silly. How about this instead: don't check email in the morning? I watched a great video featuring Julie Morgenstern, the author of, coincidentally enough, Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work:

This idea of not checking email in the morning plays off of the idea of working on one's Most Important Task before all else, and/or doing the most difficult challenging thing first (as in to Eat That Frog). One thing I liked in the interview was Julie discussing the traits of poor workers:

• Inaccessibility: This is the boss that is never around, but it can also be the employee who always puts others off, or who can never have an impromptu meeting or call.
• Not Walking the Talk: We think that saying "yes" to everything may makes us agreeable and nice, but in fact, if saying yes to everything causes us not to be able to come through on some items, we are doing significant damage to our credibility.
• Multitasking: I've written on this before. However, multitasking also includes responding to email, or surfing the Internet while on a call, or responding to the Blackberry during a meeting.
• Clutter: This is not about what is looks like, but really about whether it is functional. If you can find what you need immediately, you don't have "clutter". If you cannot find things, consider reading Getting Things Done.

I have not read Julie's book yet, but it is definitely on my list of books to check out.

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Tags: Clutter, eat that frog, Email, morgenstern, multitasking, never check email

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Articles, Productivity. You can subscribe to any comments to this entry via RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.