Work on something important. Then check your inbox.

Here’s an ideal that works well for me: > Get up and work on something important for several hours. Check your inbox only after you’ve done this. How to achieve it: 1. Write your todo list the day before. 2. Setup an “urgent” communication channel for anyone who might need to reach you before e.g. lunchtime. Make that the only channel that has notifications enabled. 3. Each day, avoid checking your non-urgent inboxes before you’ve done a few hours of focussed work. (If you find this hard, use blocking software.) If your role requires deep work and you get your best energy at the beginning of the day, I think it’s worth trying a pattern like this. Here are the main benefits: 1. Increase the amount of “prime time” energy you spend doing deep work on your most important tasks. 2. Batch process your inboxes rather than checking them repeatedly during the day. 3. You feel calmer and happier due to having those first few hours under your control. Hopefully, you emerge from them with a sense of “I did something useful today” even though it’s not even lunchtime. P.S. This pattern is one of the reasons I made [Inbox When Ready](https://inboxwhenready.org). I often need to find information from my email during these morning work sessions, and I wanted a way to do this without seeing my inbox.