Checking your email first thing in the day? You are doomed.

Personally I think checking email first think in the day is a distraction. I would much rather work on my "to do" list. Get you're work done first... check email second

Well, depends on your line of business. I always check my mail to see if something has happened overnight that needs my immediate attention.

When dealing with clients and selling services, I think checking email it's inevitable. You can never leave your clients alone with their issues and must resolve everything ASAP. And if some emails notify you of sales or orders, it will give a nice positive start to a great day.

You got to check your mails if you are product owner. I get all these support questions and if I don't get up and answer my mails for a day. I'll lose lots of my previous customers.

I do have a "to do list" but its not for daily basis. I write down monthly goals for myself. Its much better that way and more flexible.

In my line of work, I am always on email, tried to only check a few times a day, I get a few hundred emails a day, so that just backed me up big time. After reading the Four Hour Work Week, I tried some of the ideas of not checking email every hour, was difficult , I am afraid to say I think I am addicted to email

I agree with the previous replies; it truly depends on your line of work. I usually load up mine within 30 minutes of firing up the PC and sort through overnight and early morning inbox. It's a cycle every 2-3 hours about 4 times a day.

I always check my email first thing - delete the junk and flag the rest into appropriate categories. Unless there is something really urgent that requires immediate attention I then close Outlook and get on with the task list that I'd set up the night before.

Acting upon and responding to daily emails is always on that list but not near the top.

I will personally start off the day with activities which helps to bring more people to the website because that first few hours is the most productive time for me. Once I have done the marketing activities already then I will check email.

It is definitely not easy as there are times when I am tempted to just check email first. But having the discipline to do the most important activities is still the way to be productive.

Check emails only 2 times a day. I use Thunderbird to set at alarm at 12pm and 4pm because that's the only time I check emails.

Strange... I check my emails first thing in the morning, and I leave my email inbox open all day long, and I dont seem to be doomed in any way... How is that possible?

I'm like most of you and check my email first, then analytics, and so on... After that I go to the bathroom for my morning routine

While I understand why you might feel doomed, but it's either that or going around wanting to check your email every few minutes!

It's a habit. It's like checking Facebook or choosing fries over salad.

What I do is that I set some limits. For example, I set 1 hour of working time. After that, I can check my e-mail or Facebook or 30 minutes. Once my alarm goes off, I'm done and back to work again. There will be times that you'll cheat. But it is better than nothing.

I don't think that checking emails first thing in the morning is indicative of anything other than you have emails to check. You can read way too much into normal actions once you start applying psychobabble.

In the 4-hour Work Week Time Ferris recommends checking emails infrequently and sending everyone who dares to contact you by email a message telling them that you are now only checking emails once a day so please be patient and wait for a reply.

Whenever I got one of those messages (thankfully the trend seems to have abated now) I mentally marked the person sending it as a self-obsessed a-hole. That message really says "My time is way more important to me than you or your business is, so f-off until I'm ready to bestow my valuable attention on you."

Who would you rather deal with? Someone who implies the above or someone who replies to your question in a cheerful and timely fashion?

Customers and clients are way too important to me to keep them waiting, so I check my emails frequently and deal with them as immediately as possible. It really doesn't distract me or take up any more of my 'valuable' time.

Martin

Well, I have customers who contact me via email for support and I can't think of a more important way to start the day than to take care of their requests.

I have email open all day and it doesn't hurt my creativity

Agreed 100% Martin. If that's the case..checking email once a day..then it doesn't need to be publicized, it just needs to be done. It's almost as if your saying " look at me , neener neener"

I check my emails at 12:30 each day. I push as many of them as I can to an assistant to action. I finsish the day by producing an action list for tommorrow. First thing I review the action list on the basis of Parento Rule - 20% of the list will give me 80% of my results. Those become my priority for the day. My phone goes on divert or I activate the answer message that I will pick up calls at 1:00 pm, if the matter is urgent call my assistant on XYZ. I then get real quality productive time to deal with my 20% activities - the priorities. It is all about priorities to me and that is it. Carving out time for what I want and will get done that day. I get no hangovers of the 20% of the tasks as i have made sure that they can all be done in a day if not they are already broken down into chunks that are given the same 20% priority.

Pretty interesting insight, Deepak.

Its a Good Point By Deepak,but it solely depends on your nature of business. I guess Most of the Warriors earn their bread and butter from Internet and, to ensure they keep earning they have to be connected all the time, that means checking emails on the go too,ie Using Blackberry to pull email on the go every 5 mins, its annoying and it makes you extremely curious too and it i am sure that is the side effect.

But cant help it if you rely on Internet to fill your tummy.

It actually depends, my work and business depends on my email. So checking email is my top priority.