A New Start to the Day

This is how my mornings used to start.

Around dawn, Max the cat would come get me. He would whimper or meow. Or knock knick-knacks off the dresser. Or chase one of the other cats in a hissing screaming yowl down the hall.

So, I’d get up but not be able to go back to sleep. I would go sit at the computer to see what was waiting in my Inbox.

No more.

I’ve been reading Tim Ferriss’s lifestyle management book titled “The Four Hour Workweek.” In it, he says that we should not start the day with email.

He recommends a bunch of other techniques, including only checking email twice a day. ::gasp!:: And to avoid the news. (Yeah. Right. Dude, it’s a US Presidential election year – and hurricane season.)

I now close off my email program before bedtime so that I won’t be tempted by its siren call in the morning. “Who sent me something??? Anything good????” Hmmm???

So, I get to work with the horse blog or even the novel. But, then, I realize that I need to open Outlook to get a URL stored in an email storage folder.

To continue being productive, I have to open my mail.

So far, I’ve been able to delay the inevitable until mid-morning. I can’t seem to stop at just looking for what I need. I am compelled to hit “send/receive” to see what came in while I was sleeping.

And so it begins.

But one thing I hadn’t anticipated is that I rarely get anything over night that truly needs immediate attention in the morning.

Who knew?