Wanna Be Productive? Avoid Email, Twitter, and Facebook First Thing in the Morning

Hello hello! It’s been almost two weeks since I last posted. I’ve been out-of-town for the last little while without reliable internet connectivity, so my posts were sparse. In fact, I think I only wrote the one about authenticity while I was gone. Well, you’re in for a treat. I’ve got at least a dozen new things to write about since I’ve been gone, one of which will be a series (I’m excited for it!)

Today, I want to talk about an aspect of productivity. I could be conflating things, but I think the first time I read about productivity, with respect to time of day, was in the 4-hour work week. The idea is that people are most productive (or can be the most productive) when they get to work in the morning — straight away. However, many of us, myself included, check email, Facebook, or twitter, before we get down to working on what we’ve got planned for the day. Ferriss (if I’m remember correctly) argued that this is the best way to harpoon your productivity.

So, he advocated not turning on those things until after you’ve done the “key” thing you wanted to get done that day. In fact, he has a whole specific thing about email that you might want to look into (only checking email twice, once, or less [!] a day). By staying away from these black holes of time, you’d be able to get at least that one thing you wanted to do that day and feel good about it.

I know that when I wake up in the morning, email/twitter are two things that I almost always check before I do anything else during the day. This is, in part, because twitter is the way that I get my news/learning, but also because — well — it can be a bit addictive. By checking twitter/email in the morning, I can sometimes get sucked into a problem/task or a series of articles. Before I know it, I’ve spent 60 minutes on things that I hadn’t necessarily planned. As a result, I sometimes don’t get to writing a post that day — and I’d like to write something (at least) once a day.

Let’s make a challenge of it, shall we?

Remember that meditation challenge I wrote about a few months ago? Let’s do the same thing with productivity! Let’s commit to doing the “key” thing before we get into other things (like email and twitter). Of course, I understand that some of you may not have the luxury of not checking your email (based on your jobs), but otherwise, let’s see if we can do it. You’ll be able to check on me because the one thing that I’m going to do before I check Twitter is write a post.