DON’T Check Your Email First Thing in The Morning

For the first two years that I was working full time on the Internet I would wake up, have breakfast, turn on the computer and then start checking my emails. I looked forward to it indeed, because checking email was fun. I was able to see all the messages that came via the contact form, emails from business partners and friends, new comments on the blog and the like.

Over time the amount of new messages I had every morning increased, and so did the time required to clean the inbox from new messages. At one point I was spending almost two hours checking my email every morning.

Then one day I realized that such habit was terrible for my productivity. Usually I only started working for real on my projects by 10 am or so. I am very productive in the early hours of the day, and I was wasting that answering to emails….

That is when I switched. These days I always start working on the really important tasks first (e.g., writing content, promoting my websites, building new websites, managing the overall business strategy and so on). Once I am done with those tasks then I allow myself to tap less important stuff, like email and RSS feeds.

Unless you have a direct question from a potential customer or client then answering to emails won’t make you money. Building and promoting your website will. Guess which one you should do first?