I Used to Wake Up and Check Email Before Anything Else

I used to love checking email on my phone. Loved it. Having the inbox in my pocket felt like a productivity upgrade. Then opening it became the first thing I did after waking, and I was glued to the screen.

Email is a to-do list other people can write on. I was letting them fill the first slot.

Have you checked work email recently before choosing a single outcome of your own?

I still handle email. Some jobs don’t allow delayed replies. What changed is the triage. I decide what matters, I respond at different speeds on purpose, and the inbox is no longer the automatic starting point. Tomorrow morning, choose the day’s most important outcome before you open it.

Brooks and I have been dropping rigid rules: inbox targets, minute-by-minute optimization, elaborate note systems, inflexible routines. The replacement still has structure. Know what matters. Reduce friction for useful actions. Add friction to distractions. Review what works. Keep the principles. Adapt the implementation to your life.

If you follow a productivity rule out of obligation rather than usefulness, put a name on it.

An empty inbox is still a job

Brooks stopped chasing inbox zero. An empty inbox was becoming another productivity job rather than a solution.

His preferred move happens upstream. Unsubscribe from messages you don’t want. Disable notifications you don’t need. Filter low-value updates so they stop landing in the pile you process every session.

Reducing what arrives saves you from doing the same processing work over and over. Constantly clearing the inbox treats the symptom.

If you use filters, keep a review pass for the routed mail. Important messages can land in those folders, and they still need to be seen. Brooks also relies on search rather than exhaustive filing. He finds what he needs when he needs it.

Before your next inbox session, turn off one recurring source of unnecessary email.

I tracked every minute for four months

I once tracked my day minute by minute. Sleep, morning routine, workouts, work. Start the timer, stop the timer. I did it for roughly four months.

The data was revealing. I could finally see where the hours went instead of guessing.

I don’t live like that now. I measure a good day by whether I finished meaningful outcomes, not by how precisely every minute was allocated.

Do you actually know where your hours go? If you don’t, try a bounded audit. I’d run it for two or three weeks, with an explicit end date, then stop. Time tracking can diagnose a stretch of days without becoming a permanent way of life.

I plan tomorrow’s outcomes the night before, then I adjust the target to actual capacity. A meeting-heavy day might support two important tasks. A relatively open day might support four or five. If I slept poorly, I lower the target rather than forcing the original plan.

Tonight, pick tomorrow’s outcomes against the calendar. In the morning, check your energy and adjust.

Brooks compares a daily plan to packing a suitcase. Leave it almost empty and you may be underprepared. Stuff it so tightly that it barely closes, and there’s no room for anything the trip brings. A useful schedule contains a plan for important outcomes plus spare capacity for interruptions, changes, and opportunities. Buffer is part of the plan.

Leave one block uncommitted tomorrow.

Two jobs for notes

Brooks separates note-taking into two jobs: capture something quickly, and keep selected material for the long term.

When did your note system become a project of its own? His capture space has no elaborate organization. His long-term vault stays simple, with very few extensions. Not everything captured deserves permanent storage. Separating these jobs can make a note system useful without turning its maintenance into another project.

Start with the notes app already on your device. Switch only when a specific need warrants it.

I’ve simplified my notes to basic text files. I also use a daily AI automation that organizes notes left on my desktop, and another that sorts screenshots and gives them descriptive filenames. I want AI doing the administrative work around information, rather than generating more information to manage.

Prototype an organizer on a copied folder of sample notes or screenshots. Review its proposed changes. Keep the originals.

Walk the inbox, then don’t skip twice

I built my email workflow around a 15-minute walk rather than sitting in the inbox. With an AI assistant connected to email, I ask it to surface messages that need my judgment, read short messages or summarize long ones, and help draft replies through voice conversation.

I used to scan everything. Now I make decisions about a selected set of messages. I still review before anything sends. Don’t run this with confidential information in a public space, and don’t expect the assistant to learn your relationships on its own.

Pilot one short, draft-only voice-triage session with an approved email connection. You hit send.

My habit rule is to avoid skipping twice in a row. The routine does not have to happen at an untouchable time. It has to come back.

Did a missed morning recently write off your whole day? Brooks favors strong routines held flexibly. When his morning routine was disrupted, he looked for opportunities later in the day instead of treating the entire day as ruined.

This week, choose one rigid rule. Identify the useful principle behind it. Test a simpler version that preserves the benefit.

One rule. Seven days. Start with that.