We all know you shouldn’t check your email first thing in the morning, unless you want to wake up midafternoon, sans coffee and sanity, with a to-do list longer than your arm. But what should you do when you first sit down at your desk each morning?
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Jacquelyn Smith at Forbes offers advice on things we should do at the start of our work day. Here’s our take on her excellent advice:
1. Wake up.
As Smith points out, even if you’re not a morning person, you still need to be coherent enough to participate. If that means getting earlier — or shotgunning coffee before the big meeting — do it. You owe it to your coworkers to be as present as possible.
2. Get organized.
Michael Kerr, president of Humor at Work, tells Smith that the first hour of the day is the best time to set your priorities.
“Too many people get distracted first thing in the morning with unimportant activities such as diving right into their morass of e-mail, when there may be a whole host of more important issues that need dealing with,” Kerr says.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention how helpful a good to-do list can be.
3. Plan a break.
For most of us, time to regroup is the very last thing on our minds when we sit down at our desks, especially on Monday mornings. We’re still dealing with fallout from trying to get a little time off over the weekend (or, during the week, a few hours of sleep away from our email). But ignoring your need to rest and reset your brain won’t help you get stuff done faster. While you’re looking at your schedule and mapping out your day, make time to recover.
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