Straight from James Clear’s newsletter: 

Do the most important thing first each day and you’ll never have an unproductive day.

When I read that line, I was like pumping my fists in the air on the inside. Hell yeah! Most of my mornings for the past 2 months were exactly like how he had so succinctly stated – I did the most important thing first thing in the morning, and that’s my daily hour of code. And very often (ok not every. single. day. but often enough) after I crush a particularly pesky bug or complete a code snippet doing some really cool sh*t, I feel like I’m done for the day. It’s a great feeling to have, especially when you’ve still got the rest of the day ahead!

I remembered how in my past jobs, the first thing we did were never the most important thing, from any definition of the word “important”. It was mostly just replying emails, especially those from your boss. There’s no sense of victory from those. In fact, emails are just a Sisyphean pain in the ass - never-ending rolling of the email boulder up one hill only to find more the next day. 

It’s an honest living, nonetheless. True true. No judgement on that. But at what price?

The autonomy to be able to do the most important thing in the morning, to be able to set up a career that allows you to do that, will be more valuable than any benefit or bonuses an employer can offer.