Is there anything worse than 8 am email?
How frustrating, even more… how de-motivating, is looking at email to start your day? I don’t know who said it, but a long time ago I heard:
“Email is someone else’s ultimate to do list”.
So don’t do it! Don’t start your day with reactive work, that someone else (internal or external) put on your computer screen. Do something different. Create something different.
What if instead you:
- Didn’t open email until 10 am, or noon, or even later every day?
- Had one staff member who signed a confidentiality agreement and took over your email (briefing you on a need-to-know basis)?
- Time-Blocked specific hours each day (or days each week) to check email, turning it off all other times?
- Moved email to a secondary computer, where you had to consciously move to be in front of it?
Because this isn’t about email or not – since we know it’s required on some level. Instead, this is about proactive vs. reactive, conscious vs. unconscious, creating vs. managing, their to-do list vs. yours.
You can quit 8 am email tomorrow, and the next, the next, and every day after that. If you want to.
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