Never Check Your Email First Or Last
- Posted by glen on August 8th, 2006
I used to have this routine where I would check my email, go to bed, wake up, eat breakfast, and check my email again. I used to believe that this was the way to do things; by making sure I didn’t miss anything throughout the night. I figured that if I wanted to be productive during the day, I’d have to clear out the inbox first. And if I didn’t clear out the inbox at night, I’d be left with even more email to check in the morning. What started out seemingly as a great plan to control my email and become more productive, quickly turned into making my life more cluttered, unscheduled and less productive.
The Nightly “Mail” Check
Checking my email at night before I went to bed soon started to affect other areas of my life. The most obvious thing was that I was staying up much later than I planned. Email is great at distracting you, mainly because you can open it up and anything can be waiting for you inside. A work proposal, one of 10 uninteresting forwards from your grandma that day, a really weird Japanese game show video; anything can be in there. And because you can’t plan on what’s in there, you have to check it all. And it will distract you, mark my words. You’ll watch the movie, and then you’ll want to watch more because it was sooo funny, and pretty soon you’re no longer checking your email. Before you know it, you’ll have spent an hour “checking your email”, and you hadn’t really gotten anything done.I’ve fallen down this road many a time, and before I knew it I was finding myself up 2 hours later than planned. I wasn’t giving myself enough time for a good night’s sleep, and wasn’t able to wake up when I wanted to the next day. This is especially crucial because I’ve found that I’m most productive in the mornings. By staying up hours later than planned, I’d either be faced with waking up without adequate sleep or waking up later and missing those important productive hours.
The AM Bombardment
Now, if you’re like me, you live and die by your email. It is essential to my work life and personal life, and without it I curl up into a fetal position and start sucking my thumb. Naturally, you can see why I felt it was important to check my email every morning. So I’d cater to my email addiction and hop on the computer as quickly as possible, only to find again that I was getting sidetracked like the night before while burning those precious productive hours. This vicious cycle kept going until I started to do one thing; waiting to check my email until I had gotten at least one task done. I was inspired by a book I discovered on Amazon (thanks Gina) called “Never Check Email In the Morning“. By not checking my email until I had gotten at least one task done, I was forcing myself to become less dependent on my AM email fix, and to start controlling my inbox instead of having it control me.
Merlin Mann at 43 Folders puts it best:
Waiting an hour or so to collect the overnight haul buys me time to wake up, get some work done, and generally orient myself. By the the time I raise the electronic flood gate, I�m already feeling on top of things and have no problem blowing through all my mail in a few short minutes. Even the crazy ones
By not checking your email at night you’ll find that you’ll get more sleep, and you won’t really be missing anything too important anyway. And by not checking your email first thing in the morning, you’ll be more productive throughout the day. By taking control of your email, you’ll find how in the scope of things, you can easily check it less often and when you do you’ll get through your inbox faster, with a more deliberate purpose.
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August 8th, 2006 at 11:42 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]
August 8th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Wow, that is so true! I think I checked my email for hours last night before bed, and that is what I do first thing in the morning before I get to work. I have to stop myself from checking before I head out to work even.
August 9th, 2006 at 2:19 am
So so true.. Although I’d widen the range and say “no computer while getting ready for work” and “no computer past midnight if you want to get to bed before 2:30am”
News sites and youtube are good timewasters when you “rediscover” them for whatever reason..
Nath
August 9th, 2006 at 3:46 am
[...] Hm, yeah, < href=”http://lifedev.net/2006/08/never-check-your-email-first-or-last”>I totally check my email way too much! Not only first thing in the morning and then before I head off to sleep (which, given my current irregular schedule, isn’t always at night), but throughout the day. As well as a huge list of weblogs. And websites that don’t have RSS feeds (e.g. Victor Davis Hanson’s website). And then websites referenced in the above. Truly terrible. HT: Chris. [...]
August 9th, 2006 at 6:42 am
[...] I read an interesting article on Life Dev suggesting that you should never check your e-mail first thing in the morning or before bed. The article makes some excellent points, but I’d like to disagree with the solution. [...]
August 9th, 2006 at 9:00 am
I stumbled across the same book while in a bookshop and I live by it now - especially at work. When I get in the office I actually don’t open my email untill around 9/10 - reason being that I recieve emails from important people in the company General managers, CEOs etc. and you often feel compelled to respond to their emails as ASAP. Many of these emails result in doing some work, more than simply replying as a result it can quickly impact the work you planned for the day. By not having your email client open I manage to get some work done first thing and end up being more productive.
August 9th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
[...] I decided to add my post on not checking your email first or last thing to Reddit almost exactly 24 hours ago. Since then, I’ve had the honor of being on the Reddit frontpage for all but one of those blissful hours, and has just recently been knocked from the frontpage. I have recieved huge amounts of traffic in a short period of time, as well as many subscribers to my feed. This could be very interesting to a lot of people because my blog is so new. That post was only my 4th on this blog, and I had almost no traffic whatsoever. All of the visits I’ve recieved in the past 24 hours are virtually all from Reddit. So consider this a case study on how much traffic you can recieve if your blog is on the frontpage of Reddit for 24 hours. [...]
August 10th, 2006 at 6:57 am
I love this! I plan on forwarding this to my husband and all my friends….oops, maybe I’ll just tell them about it. Don’t want to add to their email burden! :)
August 10th, 2006 at 10:54 am
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers canshare and discover new web pages. [...]
August 10th, 2006 at 11:43 am
[...] Brilliantly interesting if you’re into blog marketing: I decided to add my post on not checking your email first or last thing to Reddit almost exactly 24 hours ago. Since then, I’ve had the honor of being on the Reddit frontpage for all but one of those blissful hours, and has just recently been knocked from the frontpage. [...]
August 10th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
[...] In the spirit of my GTB post, another piece of advice to become a better blogger (whatever that means for you - for me it means frequent update with insightful comments, perspective and links). Never check your email first or last. [...]
August 10th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
[...] Your Email First or Last Tags: email, Productivity [ Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg it! | Furl it! ] Click Here To Learn More About InspireMe.orgResources [...]
August 10th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Good post! I think an important point here is: don’t check your email when you aren’t willing to spend some time dealing with it. People think they’ll have a quick peek, but as you point out, that rarely works.
I’m going to write about this on my blog tonight. I’m going to refer to your post, but I’d like to know about you too. Who are you? I know your blog is new, maybe you haven’t had time to put up a bio. But it would be nice to put some kind of virtual face to your posts! Look forward to reading more.
August 10th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Well, ISP abuse departments expect you to respond to their alerts in a timely manner.
So if you operate dedicated servers, you need to check your email before and after going to sleep or risk server disconnection.
Some, like ev1, are reluctant to reconnect after they disconnect it.
James.
August 10th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Email: Pandora’s (In) Box…
The reason not to check your email last thing at night, as LifeDev says, is the same as why you shouldn’t check it first thing in the morning: because it’s time consuming. Yes, it distracts you from your *real* work……
August 10th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
Well it’s almost 1 AM and here I am checking my email. I do have to say, it’s the only one I decided to read! But I had already gone to bed when I remembered and important email I had to send to my sponsor before Friday progresses. I got that accomplished, all without checking my inbox. But it was just too tempting so I caved. But after reading this here, this will be my last email (sent, received, read) tonight. And I WILL make a concious effort to stop this madness. I promise!!
Cherie
(a sleep-deprived Shaklee Associate)
August 11th, 2006 at 12:50 am
Sure, that’s fine if you’re a coder, and you know what your first job of the day is before you check your email. But some of us don’t work that way.
If, for example, I hadn’t checked my email when I first got to the office tonight, I wouldn’t have found out about a server upgrade that we’d promised the customer would be done by a certain time…that time being at least an hour after I’d have finished what I normally do first when I get in. The customer’s server wouldn’t have gotten upgraded tonight, we’d have had to schedule more downtime tomorrow, customer support would have to deal with an angry customer, and I’d have to deal with three other departments (plus my own boss) being seriously pissed at me, especially if we lost a major customer (which we could have) because of the screw-up. This is not a remotely atypical situation for me to be in, nor for any of my other friends with jobs anything like mine.
The way I deal with it is simple. I have a personal email, and a work email. Nobody I don’t work with has the work email, and nobody I do work with has the personal one. Thus when I check email at work, there’s nothing in it that isn’t important to work. And when I check personal email, I can feel free to be very liberal with the “D” key. Unless I have to write a long answer to something (which is rare), I seldom spend more than 5 minutes at a time checking email. But if I skip it or delay it, it can cause serious problems.
Oh, and people in my personal life who persist in forwarding emails to me that aren’t personal communications learn pretty quickly that such things will be ignored.
August 13th, 2006 at 8:53 am
[...] Never Check Your Email First Or Last at LifeDev - I need to think about this. [...]
August 14th, 2006 at 6:48 am
[...] Never check your email first or last thing each day, reckons LifeDev, because it slows you down and affects the way you work. [...]
August 15th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
[...] Never Check Your Email First Or Last [...]
August 15th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
[...] Never Check Your Email First Or Last [...]
August 17th, 2006 at 3:03 am
Never Check Your Email First Or Last…
This sounds like good advice … I’m guilty of checking my email and newsreader way too often, maybe I’ll try this out. [via John Gruber]……
August 17th, 2006 at 4:28 am
I find it is the same with my RSS reader. Turn it off in the morning and evening.
Oops, I’m using it now and it’s 10pm.
August 17th, 2006 at 6:11 am
So darn true. Checking the email or IM or IRC just before you go to sleep is an oxymoron.
August 17th, 2006 at 6:32 am
This is great advice. Recently, my power adapter for my powerbook bought the farm. My wife, who has an iBook, is travelling for a few days and had to have her laptop with her, and hence the power cable. As we have no desktop at home, I’m left without my laptop (battery died).
That means no night or morning email…which has been great! I’ve been getting to bed earlier and getting out of the house quicker in the morning.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:19 am
[...] I can see the wisdom in Never Check Your Email First Or Last (originally from Daring Fireball). I don’t really receive a great deal of email that isn’t spam so it is rare that checking it distracts me. I do catch myself at various times during the day checking my Junk folder to see if there are any support messages I need to handle, but it doesn’t take more than a minute to do. My wife on the other hand would be well served by this advice. She works in an office environment at a university and email is the primary means of communication. Her work email is accessible at home and many times she does read it before bed and I know it stresses her out on occasion. Following the advice in the linked post and setting Mail to check for new email less frequently would probably be beneficial for all of us. [...]
August 17th, 2006 at 7:43 am
[...] Glen Stansberry at LifeDev is reclaiming his life by managing email addiction better. [...]
August 17th, 2006 at 9:15 am
[...] Pointers on the advantages of not bookending the night with an email check – lifedev.net. Points of note – probably applies to RSS feeds (my failing) and doesn’t separate work from life email (a lot of these productivity/life quality tips seem to intermingle). [...]
August 17th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Great advice - I have the exact same problems, and was under the exact same mindset. I’ll give this a go:)
August 17th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
[...] Never Check Your Email First Or Last at LifeDev [...]
August 17th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Another thing I have learned is to not have my mail download frequently. I have mine set to check only every hour. If something is truly urgent, I have a phone…
August 19th, 2006 at 7:43 am
[...] Never Check Your Email First Or Last at LifeDev [...]
August 29th, 2006 at 10:35 am
It is Unacceptable When You Miss Something Important Because You Failed to Check Your Mail on Time…
I am reading this argument by Matt disagreeing on a post made at livedev on refraining from checking your mail at night and avoiding it as your first read of the day. The reasons presented why you don’t put your mail as your top priority is lame…
September 1st, 2006 at 4:27 pm
[...] This is a HUGE thing that many overlook. Email is still way better than RSS. Why? Because it’s delivered to their mailbox, which virtually everyone uses way too much. Unfortunately not very many people really use RSS readers yet, but everyone checks their email at least once a day. You know they’re going to see it. [...]
September 5th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
[...] Ok, so after writing Never Check Your Email First or Last, I realized that although email was bad to check before going to bed and after waking, it was only the part of the problem. I realized that if I wasn’t checking my email at night, I was still putzing around the web much later than I should be. I’d check the blog stats, read comments, read my other feeds, among others. These are the things that could easily be classified as “need to do’s”, but not “must do’s”. They were things that my mind could easily justify, (with a little coaxing) that needed to be done. Make sense? I know it sounds silly, but for some reason the mind tends to warp the importance of things on occasion. Should I be well rested or should I read lifehacker? So, given my weak knees when it comes to reading other blogs and finding cool websites, (I’m a del.icio.us junkie), I’ve decided to place upon myself a computer curfew for 5 days. After I’m done with work (5 or 6 Central Time), the computer is literally shut down. And it doesn’t restart until the next morning. I know, I know… it’s a pretty bold move. But I’m guessing that I’m actually going to get more done throughout the following day. And here’s why. [...]
September 11th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
[...] Never Check Your Email First or Last [ from LifeDev ] [...]
September 14th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
[...] I would recommend the PM Computer Fast to anyone. The benefits far outweight the drawbacks. In fact, the only drawback I could think of to this would be for employees or owners who absolutely need to know if something caught on fire. Otherwise, the majority of us don’t really need to check our email as often as we think we do. Most of the email I get late at night are crappy newsletters anyway. [...]
September 19th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
[...] Never Check Your Email First Or Last It’s true. (tags: email howto lifehacks) [...]
September 20th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
[...] Oh man, this post could be 8 miles long. I’ve already written a couple posts over the dangers of time spent on the computer. Limiting the time spent online seems so simple, yet it’s such a hard thing to do in reality. Especially for people working on the computer for a living (which the number is growing daily). The big beautiful internet and its email gives us so many more freedoms and choices, yet also gives us new expectations that traditional mail never could have dreamed of. Why? Because just like the cell phone, we use our email for both personal reasons and for work. We’ve blurred the line between work and play. [...]
October 5th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
[...] So I’ve read a few different articles about why you shouldn’t check your e-mail first or last in your day… [...]
October 7th, 2006 at 2:40 am
[...] This great article proposes some strategies to ensure you’re controlling your e-mail inbox and not the other way around. I wholeheartedly support what’s written in here as I think we as a technology generation have much to re-learn about the olden days when mail came once a day, everyday except for Sundays and holidays. I doubt you saw many people waiting by their mailboxes all day like watchdogs. [...]
November 26th, 2006 at 7:09 am
I have been guilty of checking my mail late at night - and yes a few hours pass before going to bed .. so before I know it, it’s past midnight again. Not good on the sleep patterns - and not good on the stress levels if an urgent email comes through.
With urgent emails my adrenaline shoots up and I couldn’t get to sleep even if I wanted to. Not good. Of course here I am checking mail at 11pm on a Sunday night .. it’s a hard habit to break I tell you!
The flip side is when an urgent email comes through that can quickly, easily and more important promptly be dealt with - something that will save grief if it is done straight away.
Scott
December 22nd, 2006 at 10:55 am
[...] Phil tackles issues of email etiquette expressing his frustration with people who don’t respond to emails. The reasoning they give him is funny (and sad at the same time.) His tips for how to respond to email should generate some controversy; since so many of us are overloaded by email and we all try to handle it in different ways. For example, Greg at LifeDev has a different opinion on when you should read your email. [...]
January 11th, 2007 at 7:05 am
[...] 2) Scan mail after doing one item on my list todo, then, if no emergencies, quit mail until after lunch (that’s right, no ‘pings’ as they come in). [...]
March 20th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
[...] recently read an article about not checking email to start the day. It’s proved to be true. I’m much more effective when I don’t check email first [...]
April 20th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Arab Mind…
I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….
April 24th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
yes, checking mail steal my time, Ohh, guys i’ internet dependent,addicted :(
how can i change my habit??
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:51 am
Haha, That is the first thing I do is check my email “first and last”
May 30th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! ndxrdsdzswo
June 7th, 2007 at 6:50 am
[...] Never Check Your Email First Or Last - [LifeDev] [...]
June 18th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! zmyfwmvyfwa
July 18th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
[...] post by Brian Benzinger and software by Elliott [...]
July 18th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
[...] post by John Musser and software by Elliott [...]
December 11th, 2007 at 7:55 am
great idea. I think I will try this. I have switched to only checking my personal email once in the morning some time. But my work email still gets checked several times a day.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:34 am
[...] Don’t check email first thing in the morning. For years I’ve been in the habit of launching my email client the instant I sit down and [...]
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
[...] Don’t check email first thing in the morning. For years I’ve been in the habit of launching my email client the instant I sit down and [...]
June 12th, 2008 at 7:19 am
[...] From LifeDev.net — Never Check Your Email First or Last [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 10:55 am
[...] your e-mail? Is it the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night (not a good idea)? How does inbound communication, like calls, IMs, Facebook messages, tweets, and texts affect your [...]