Don’t Check Email First Thing. Unless this is required in your job, then let it go until after you’ve completed your top priority of the day. And then process email in batches, say two or three times a day.

This makes sense.  I would feel very happy if I could knock out my day’s top priority before checking email.  Unfortunately, I often feel like I have about 10 things to do in a day that are all labeled “Top Priority.” By working at them all a little at the time throughout the day, I generally finish enough of them to feel satisfied.

How do you manage your email? Do you really feel like wading through email each day decreases your contentment or productivity?  Do you have any suggestions for alternatives?

-MJ

Today we’ll look at this this suggestion:

Accept That You’ll Never Finish Your Task List. For perfectionists and overachievers this is as frustrating as a greyhound forever chasing the mechanical bunny around the track. Get off that track. Just make sure you work on your most important stuff first. Let the fluff slide, not your priorities.

If you didn’t waste valuable time going down little roads to nowhere, pursuing activities that just don’t really matter, you would have more free time.  Then you would be able to say what ButterBeeHappy user mrsdonnad says in her happy thoughts: I’m enjoying “me” time.  Maybe like garyk, you would feel “gratefuller for waking up feeling calm,” because you’d accomplish your greatest priorities without allowing insignificant details to gnaw away at your mind.

Don’t forget to click on the picture above to read the cute story about that to-do list!

-MJ