Nearly every productivity top-10 list recommends quashing the urge to start your day, smartphone in hand, with a peek at your inbox when you wake up. One point that’s often given for avoiding the habit of the early-morning email check is based on the belief that looking at it as your first act of the day puts outside agendas ahead of your own. Another reason commonly trotted out is the assumption that reviewing and composing email are more mindless activities that should be saved for later in the day, after you’ve channeled your best morning energy toward your most important tasks.
While there are certainly compelling reasons to follow the crowd with this advice, it isn’t quite that straightforward. What you do for a living, the kind of job you have, whom you work with and your professional goals should all play a role in your decision-making about whether or not it makes sense to prioritize email before breakfast or save it as an after-lunch task. The fact is that it often makes sense to at least graze your inbox before moving on with other planned items on your calendar and to-do list.
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Here are four reasons why you may want to check email as your initial order of business:
When you report to a boss. Many of the articles out there against checking your email first and foremost are followed by a long list of comments from employees who express that it just doesn’t make sense for their job to hold off on reading email. Some reasons that people give for feeling this way are:
— Their boss would question them on why they hadn’t responded to the boss’s emailed requests.
— The messages from their boss help them determine their day’s top priorities.
— They would not be on top of the current key information sent out that morning that they need to do their job.
If you work for an employer, these are all very reasonable points, and ones that should be taken into account before you decide whether you’re going to schedule your first email review for later in the afternoon. If your supervisor requires you to stay on top of your email in order to remain up to date on assignments and top-line requests, then saving your messages for midday could seriously hurt your work performance.
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When you work with a team. It isn’t just your boss who may be sending you vital information via email. Your colleagues, team members, people in other departments and even vendors may also have critical details to communicate via email. If you choose to avoid even a quick email scan in the morning, then you could end up putting your whole team behind the eight ball for the day’s or week’s deliverables.
When you have clients. Many industries require you to interface directly with the company’s clients, as well as internal team members. If you’re responsible for staying in touch with clients — whether for your employer or for your own business — then choosing to delay checking messages can be a foolish move. Effectively servicing clients needs to be at the top of every company’s or enterprise’s goal list, so staying accessible to customers and responding to their questions and requests should be considered a major part of your job responsibilities.
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When time is of the essence. In each of the three instances above — whether you work with a manager, team members or a client list — quick responsiveness often makes or breaks your essential professional relationships and ultimately determines your career success or failure. This isn’t just hyperbole. When you think about it, developing a pattern of waiting too long to reply to an email from your boss may cause him or her to decide you don’t have the speed it takes to excel in your job. If you drag your feet on scanning your email and miss a deadline-driven message from a colleague, you could cause your entire team’s project to tank. And a slow reply to clients could result in their company taking their business to a competitor who is perceived as more agile.
As you can see, it almost always makes sense to prioritize reading email in the morning. If you work with others in any capacity or are in a situation where responsiveness is important, then making a quick email check your No. 1 action can pay off by putting you and those who depend on you — whether your boss, co-workers or clients — ahead of the game.
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Here’s Why You Should Check Your Work Email First Thing in the Morning originally appeared on usnews.com
