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How do you start your work day?

Ben Halpern on March 25, 2022

Getting the day off on the right foot is important — what does that mean for you?

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Sherry Day

I keep a running todo list. I try to start my day by checking something off before I sign on to Slack.

You never know what interruptions await you once you are "online", so I have a game of trying to finish something before that point.

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GrahamTheDev

Love this, I am going to start doing this next week as you are right, that first 20 minutes of catch-up on slack is not the best start to a day, getting something done is!

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GrahamTheDev • Edited

I start my day with reading my entry from the previous day.

Every day, before I close down, I write what I did that day, outcomes of meetings, action points, check the calendar and slack to check I haven't missed anything.

I also end that entry with what I was in the middle of when I stopped for the day and (if it is code), leave myself a comment in the code as well saying exactly what I was doing when I stopped and what I was going to do next.

So first thing I do when I start my day is read what I did the previous day, make sure I haven't missed any items for the task list and then open slack.

However I will be stealing @sherrydays start to the day and change it to:

  • read previous day's entry
  • do something productive from my task list (or maybe even 2 things!)
  • then open slack.

I prefer that and have no idea why I don't do it already!

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Parker Waiters

How consistent are you with this approach? Do you get thrown off if/when you aren't able to make it happen?

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GrahamTheDev • Edited

About 95%, probably once every 3-4 weeks something will "throw me off".

However whenever the "disaster" that stops me from doing it (which is normally me just oversleeping and needing to jump straight into a meeting 🤣) happens, I just make sure that I do it as early as possible.

I never miss my end of day routine (I will always do it at some point before bed if I have an urgent issue that interrupts it), I will even leave something half way through to make time for it as it has saved me hours and hours of work over the years.

Despite take about 15 minutes a day to complete it frees up a lot of thinking space and I get up and running so much faster the next day knowing I have dealt with and categorised the previous day's stuff.

One thing to consider here though, I control my own diary pretty much, so it might be more difficult for a 9-5 job to take that time out at the beginning and end of the day!

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Lucia Cerchie • Edited

I work remote! I make my French Press coffee, open my laptop, and read through these notifications in this order:

  1. email
  2. slack
  3. github

bigger company announcements tend to go out on email, which give me context for slack conversations, which in turn give me context for github issues/PRs

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Ben Halpern

Did you start this notification-oriented approach deliberately or did you just sort of land on this routine organically?

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Lucia Cerchie

Kind of both -- I'm an async member of a fast-paced startup so it makes sense but I tend to start my days with understanding where the people who I'm going to interact with are at anyhow.

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Heather Williams

I like to start my day off slowly. Have a bit of a lie in and mess around on my phone. Amble into the kitchen for tea and breakfast. Finally make it into the office an hour or so later. Then a quick scan of e-mails, slack and trello to see if there is anything high priority or any meetings to prep for. Do some work, have lunch and then really get going for the day. Being a night owl in a world of early birds is a challenge though. I usually open up my laptop to a slew of messages from my colleagues that I need to process. At least they understand I work later and the company I work for allows us to only start work at 10 am if we wish to.

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Adam Crockett 🌀

I sit on my sofa and open my laptop - then I stare blankly, change my mind and go get a coffee, then I get to work 😂

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chengcheng

This is the best way to eat later and go for a walk

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Diner Das

My work day usually starts with my second daily coffee 🤪

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Sekam Dex
  1. Have breakfast
  2. Turn on my laptop
  3. Check e-mails and take action if needed
  4. Check if there are any important messages in Slack
  5. Check my open tickets in Jira and order by hierarchy
  6. Start coding and attend meetings
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Gerard Klijs • Edited

I'll start with a half hour workout. After showering I check the meetings for that day, and open github for notifications and slack, of course.

Then start working on something, which could be writing code, reviewing code, writing a blog, or writing documentation.

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chengcheng

This is the best way to eat later and go for a walk

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Margo McCabe
  • Do quick workout or stretch
  • Make tea & a snack
  • Commute to the home office (aka walk ten steps)
  • Check email, Slack, social media notifications
  • Update to-do list
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AndyRosenberg

Zombie into standup, check back in an hour later once I make coffee, help out my kid and dogs, and possibly have a call with a stakeholder before starting the real work.

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Niklas Schäffer

That's literally my day in a nutshell

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K-Sato • Edited

a cup (sometimes two cups) of Coffee

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Makar

I pick up my kid from school 🤪

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Luca Del Puppo

I open Trello and I watch how the sprint goes.
I focus to remember where I let my job the day before and preparing myself for the stand-up. Sometimes all this is followed by a good cup of coffee! :)

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Jason F

I write out any notes I need to bring to standup. I then either update my todo list from the previous day or start a new list.

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Nikola Stojaković

I start the work day by preparing coffee and checking Slack. After that I check off my to-do list items if there is anything I can do from it right away and I go through the e-mail.

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Max F. Findel

Walk my dog up a hill with a rucking backpack with 20kg. I get my daily exercise and my dog is not grumpy the rest of the day :)

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Charlie J Smotherman

Lololol 2 fingers in my coffee, rollup a big fat one snoopdog would be proud of and get to work.

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Firmbee

In Firmbee we start our day by checking our to-do list. It's important to have a plan before you start working.