--- title: Ashton Kutcher Has a Great Email Tip for Excelling at Work description: The actor-turned-tech-guru shares his all-important email hack with Arianna Huffington in a new podcast interview for Thrive Global. canonical: https://time.com/4984326/ashton-kutcher-email/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-16T18:16:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:48:03.462Z og:title: Ashton Kutcher Has a Simple Secret for Getting Ahead at Work og:description: Don't get punk'd by your inbox og:url: https://time.com/4984326/ashton-kutcher-email/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49c271eb8267cb4/6988e21e86f68e76e36e6de4/ashton-kutcher.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 3rd Annual Airbnb Open Spotlight og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ashton Kutcher Has a Simple Secret for Getting Ahead at Work twitter:description: Don't get punk'd by your inbox twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49c271eb8267cb4/6988e21e86f68e76e36e6de4/ashton-kutcher.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Ashton Kutcher Reveals His Simple Secret to Getting Ahead at Work ## Video: Watch Ashton Kutcher Give a Passionate Speech Against Human Trafficking [Watch (HLS stream): Watch Ashton Kutcher Give a Passionate Speech Against Human Trafficking](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/t9Wq0HKg.m3u8) (0:52)  _Published 2017-02-15. Ashton Kutcher attended a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Wednesday morning to deliver a speech against modern slavery._  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 16, 2017 6:16 PM UTC  LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 19: Ashton Kutcher speaks onstage at the 3rd Annual Airbnb Open Spotlight at The Orpheum on November 19, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by JB Lacroix/WireImage) LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 19: Ashton Kutcher speaks onstage at the 3rd Annual Airbnb Open Spotlight at The Orpheum on November 19, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by JB Lacroix/WireImage)JB Lacroix—WireImage  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 16, 2017 6:16 PM UTC Let [Ashton Kutcher](http://time.com/money/4824060/mila-kunis-ashton-kutcher-beach-house-carpinteria-california/) teach you how to avoid getting punk’d by your email inbox. His advice, delivered to Arianna Huffington on a new episode of her [_Thrive Global_ Podcast](http://time.com/4585222/arianna-huffington-sleep-thrive/) is simple: don’t look at your messages until after you’ve finished everything _you_ wanted to send out. “When I wake up…I spend the first hour of my work not looking at email, and actually just writing out what it is that I want to accomplish in a given day,” Kutcher told _Thrive_ founder Huffington in the interview. “And then before I go through my emails, I’ll do all my outgoing, outbound stuff, which is what I want everyone else to do for me. And then I’ll go and get reactive to whatever’s going on.” Kutcher added that he used to spend two hours or so of his morning just answering emails — an “impossible hole” that many office workers can certainly relate to. “All I was doing was other people’s work all day long, and I never actually got to the things that I wanted to accomplish,” he said. But that’s no longer the case for him. And it’s clear he’s doing something right: outside of his career in acting, Kutcher is a man of many hats. He heads up a venture capital firm, is [a husband and father, ](http://motto.time.com/4732852/ashton-kutcher-role-model-award/)has made some [recent real estate](http://time.com/money/4824060/mila-kunis-ashton-kutcher-beach-house-carpinteria-california/) acquisitions, [moonlighted as](http://time.com/4797422/the-bachelorette-recap-season-13-episode-2/) a relationship advisor on _The Bachelorette_ and has even taken the time to speak to the Senate about the [human trafficking.](http://time.com/4672257/ashton-kutcher-human-trafficking-speech/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4984326/ashton-kutcher-email/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4984326/ashton-kutcher-email/"},"headline":"Ashton Kutcher Reveals His Simple Secret to Getting Ahead at Work","datePublished":"2017-10-16T18:16:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:48:03.462Z","description":"The actor-turned-tech-guru shares his all-important email hack with Arianna Huffington in a new podcast interview for Thrive Global.","url":"https://time.com/4984326/ashton-kutcher-email/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","Ashton Kutcher","Business"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49c271eb8267cb4/6988e21e86f68e76e36e6de4/ashton-kutcher.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49c271eb8267cb4/6988e21e86f68e76e36e6de4/ashton-kutcher.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"3rd Annual Airbnb Open Spotlight","caption":"3rd Annual Airbnb Open Spotlight","creditText":"JB Lacroix—WireImage","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4984326/ashton-kutcher-email/","name":"Ashton Kutcher Reveals His Simple Secret to Getting Ahead at Work"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Watch Ashton Kutcher Give a Passionate Speech Against Human Trafficking","description":"Ashton Kutcher attended a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Wednesday morning to deliver a speech against modern slavery.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/t9Wq0HKg/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-02-15T20:06:36.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/t9Wq0HKg.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4984326/ashton-kutcher-email/","duration":"PT52S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4984326/ashton-kutcher-email/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```