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Checking Email as Soon as You Wake up Could be Ruining Your Day (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the pro-tip dept.

From a CNBC report: If you're like most people, you wake up to an alarm ringing on your smartphone. Then you probably roll over and check your work email. That's a dangerous way to start the day, according to a woman who studies happiness for a living. Reading just one negative email could lead you to report having a bad day hours later, says Michelle Gielan, former national CBS News anchor. [...] Before you check your email or the news, put yourself in the right frame of mind by taking two minutes to draft a positive email to someone in your social support network. Thank a friend or family member for their support, or praise a colleague on their recent work, she suggests. After you send your upbeat email, move on to your regular routine of checking your work email or the news. That two-minute message primes your brain to see everything in a more positive light.

5 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. correction.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    reading work-related emails while NOT AT WORK, could be ruining your day.

  2. Have we reached peak participation trophy yet? by TuballoyThunder · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The stupid factor in the article is so high, that I feel like I wasted gravity just reading it.

    The same goes with reading stressful or negative news, according to a study Gielan conducted with Arianna Huffington and her husband, happiness researcher and author Shawn Achor.

    Society pays for a "happiness researcher"?

    1. Re:Have we reached peak participation trophy yet? by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Society pays for a "happiness researcher"?

      Of course, and really why wouldn't it? Happiness is a positive contributor to many positive aspects of society, efficiency, spending (GDP by extension), throw in that happy people tend to put up with more bullshit. It is one of the things that is well worth studying as it has a major cost on society if the people aren't happy.

  3. Re:Ain't nobody got time for that by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't have work email on my phone. Never will.

    I usually don't check work email in any way if I'm not in the office - the major exception being when I'm oncall. But even when I'm oncall, no work email on my phone, that way madness lies.

    It can wait.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  4. Re: I'm not like most people. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Americans and their idea of a work day... Weird. Sure 9-5 doesn't always work because shit happens. But if shit happens so often that you have a routine to make sure you work more than 9 to 5 every day then something is wrong. Getting up at 4 to do at least an hour of work and being in the office before 8 should mean you leave work way before 5 not 5 to 5:20 on average.