Stop Checking Email When You First Wake Up

​Email continues to be the most popular form of business communication. So you can guarantee that you are going to get a lot of new messages today.  But don’t let your inbox distract you from your most important work.

When you first wake up in the morning, resist the urge to open up your email application.  Instead, start your day with a productive boost by focusing on your most valuable task.  There will be plenty of time to write and respond to email today. Just make sure that you don’t include your inbox as a part of your first hour.

Video transcript:

Here's a quick tip to help you be more productive in the mornings. I want you to ignore email for the very first hour. That's right, I want you to let your inbox sleep in. I don't care what time it is that you wake up in the morning. I want you to ignore email for the first 60 minutes.

How is this going to make you more productive? Well, when we start our days with email it tends to put us in more of a reactionary mode. As we're replying and responding to other people's requests, we get pulled away and distracted from our own most important work.

So starting tomorrow, start ignoring your email for the very first hour. You've got so many hours in the day to reply to email, just don't make the first hour one of them.

Let your inbox sleep in. It's very simple.