“Your cognitive dissonance is epic”

From time to time, friends, I’m going to post stuff here about how to make work easier. Little of any of it is mine (hah! chance would be a fine thing) but it is stuff that I have come across that makes the daily chores of organizing and staying on top of things a little easier. These will be classified as “Hacks” and there’s now a category for them.

Today, I recommend a look at Merlin Mann’s tips for getting your inbox to zero.

Personally, I’d concentrate first on just processing based on a battlefield “biage” (is that even a word?). Delete the obvious spam, chain letters, and kitty photos. Archive the mailing lists and blog comments (sorting by subject is great for this), all the while identifying, flagging, and relocating all the actual important stuff to a “pending” folder — that’s the stuff that will take your real brain power and valuable time. Just get that sucker down to zero now. Fast. Go. Only when you’re at zero do you return to “pending,” concentrating on short responses and generation of to-dos. Gang your work, stay in one mode, and if you start getting exhaustipated, just take a break and return by running dashes 3-5 times a day.

Merlin’s site is tremendous and concentrates on all the myriad ways to use and adapt GTD. He is also a lot of fun and writes both informatively and amusingly, which is rare enough these days. Moerover, his ability to deflect flame and defuse tensions on the 43 Folders board is legendary and an education in itself.

Anyway, it’s timely for me to look at this. I’ve been trying to stay on top of stuff but in the 5 weeks since I joined Halliwells my inbox has crept up to 365 items as of just now, so a little triage is in order. Now, I’m just going to set up a Pending folder, create a few rules and conduct a little triage. I’ll let you know how I get on.

UPDATE [later that day]: It works. InBox now at zero. Tomorrow, the Pending tray!

No related posts.