Why starting your day by opening your emails destroys productivity…

The first thing that many of us do when we get into the office, or even when we wake up, is to check our emails. In this short article, I’m going to explain why this is so damaging to your productivity.

For many people, the morning is their most productive time of day. This is when their energy levels are at their highest. Energy levels do not stay high permanently – even if we like to think that they do! We all have peaks and troughs which are influenced by a range of factors – how we slept last night, what we did yesterday, what is going on at home etc.

Therefore, in order to make the most of our most valuable resource (time), we need to make sure we manage our tasks and actions in accordance with our energy levels.

Emails are not very often challenging to deal with. They tend to be ‘for information’ or requests for you to do something. How they are used and the volume you receive is a symptom of your company culture.

E-mails are rarely urgent.

If it was urgent, the person would call you and even clients don’t/shouldn’t expect an email response within the same day so don’t feel you need to get back to them ASAP… You don’t. They will still be a client in the morning.

The trouble with answering your emails first thing is that you are dancing to someone else’s tune. You are – by definition – reacting to someone else’s needs.

What do you need to do today?

What are you avoiding?

These are the questions you should be asking when you start your day. 

Productivity is about creating a ‘daily architecture’ so that when you are at peak energy, you are matching it with your most demanding tasks.

Naturally this varies with your role and industry. The point is that this is about you– and how you get things done that you need to get done. I am not suggesting that you stop being collaborative – far from it. This is about making sure that things that are important to you get delivered when you’re in the right state of mind.

I tend to split the tasks that I do into three tiers. It really just involves putting a 1-3 next to the task and managing them based on my present energy levels.

The tiers include the following tasks.

Tier One 

Reading. Writing. Working on projects that require careful thought. Anything creative. Reviewing important deliverables that you worked on yesterday. Any projects that mean others are ‘waiting on you’ to complete them. Near term deadlines/preparation for events or meetings.

Tier Two

Emails. When scanning through emails, I will look to see if it requires me to do something. If it does, I ‘mark it as unread’ so that I have a prompt to come back and complete an action. If it is asking me for a quick decision or do to a quick action, I do it immediately – it never makes it to the list.

Tier Three

Research. Anything that is a nice to have; booking tickets/reservations. Paying for stuff. Dealing with receipts and business admin. Simple processes that are not challenging and I would delegate… if I had someone to delegate them to!

Whatever your process – however you start your day. Make sure that it is aligned with your energy levels.

This is about building a process for how you get things done in the most effective way possible. It will vary with people and might even vary with your daily priorities. I was having a conversation with someone who mentioned that they like to respond to a couple of e-mails as a way of warming-up before they get into the more challenging tasks.

How you do it doesn’t matter – it’s making sure that you have a process that is important.

Great companies and strong cultures measure people by how they perform – not the amount of time they spend on the job or in the office.

So what is your process for managing your energy levels?

How are you making the best use of your time to get the most out of it?

If you would like me to deliver a short talk on this subject – please don’t hesitate to get in touch and discuss it with me via the contact page.