Why your first hour at work is the most critical hour of your day

Do you sometimes find yourself spending the first hour of your day making coffee, chatting to co-workers and checking through your huge inbox while answering a few emails? Do you sometimes find it hard to get started in the morning? If you answered “yes”, you’re not alone. Many professional people tend to write off the first hour of their day as unproductive preparation time – but this can be a disastrous mistake.

The first hour of your day does not only set the tone and the focus for the rest of your day but it’s also likely to be the only chance you’ll have throughout the day to stop, think and plan while everyone else is chatting, reading and trying to confront what has to be done.

Can you get to work earlier than your colleagues? Arriving at work a bit earlier means you’ll miss the traffic or crush on public transport, you’ll have some ‘quiet’ time to yourself before anyone else comes in (and it could also carry the added benefit of impressing your managers).

6 suggestions to make your first hour more productive

1. Get a healthy start to the day
The first thing is to start the day in a healthy way. Research shows a third of all workers skip breakfast. This can reduce concentration levels, increase stress and create a negative mood. Having a healthy breakfast really does give you the energy to get through a busy day. Coffee (or a caffeine soft drink alone is generally not considered a healthy breakfast!

2. Get organised
Use the first hour of your day to sort out everything you will need throughout the day. Create a plan for your day, get your files and folder ready to be actioned, confirm any appointments by sending a quick confirmation email and take care of anything that should have been done last night before. Block off ten to twenty minutes during the first hour of your day to organise yourself. If you don’t, you may get caught up with busy-work and never have any real control of your time.

3. Daily habits (make some or break some)
Take some time to think about what you normally do in that first hour at work. Everyone has morning habits – it may be having a coffee, reading the newspaper or going through emails. Before you know it you are already an hour into the working day and you haven’t even started on the real tasks. Do you need to change your morning routine?

4. Use Your travel time productively
If you really want to have a successful day, use your travel time between home and work to think ahead and prepare a plan for the day. Rather than listening to music or the radio maybe you could listen to audio learning material.

5. Make an ‘Action List’
Once you have the day’s objectives in mind, you can put the plan into action by writing them down on an Action List. When you sit down and think about the day ahead, write down all of your thoughts and then
Triage your list. A helpful way to see the day in full is to open up your
diary or your computer calendar.

6. Be prepared
Lastly, a major time saver is to have all of your work materials to hand. I am sure you’ve experienced that burst of panic when your manager or
client asks for a file that you just can’t seem to find quickly enough. Before you start your day and do any work, make sure you are prepared.

To learn more about managing your time and priorities, visit or go to