As Far As I Can Tell

Organization Tip #2: The Empty Inbox

  For a few weeks I've been working hard to manage my inbox better.  I took several of the tips from GoodExperience.com's article "Managing Incoming E-mail" and added a few of my own.  The result has been a completely empty Inbox. 

Before I started this journey I wondered why I was even starting it.  "What does it matter how many e-mails I have sitting in my Inbox", I asked (856 at the time).  I argued that I could find and provide old e-mails faster than most people I knew, so what was the big deal?  Looking back now I can see that by managing my inbox better fewer "todo" e-mails fall through the cracks.  There's also nothing like an empty inbox to decrease you're perceived level of stress. 

Below are some of the tips I've found most helpful.

• The first step to cleaning your inbox is to file for bankruptcy by bulk moving all e-mails out.  I did this by creating a folder in my personal folder with the title 'Archive'.  I then moved all e-mail into this folder.  Finally, I did a quick scan for important todo's that still needed attention.  I quickly took care of each one immediately.

• Now when I check my e-mail I do not leave Outlook until the Inbox is empty.  E-mail leaves my box by one of the following methods:

• Junk mail (with our spam software we don't get too much) is deleted

• Informational items are read and deleted.

• Calendar requests are accepted / rejected immediately

• Items that can be delegated are done some immediately.  If I feel the task requires follow up I add a reminder to my Great Big Book of Everything.

• If it's a task I must do myself I do it if it takes less than 2 minutes right then and there no exceptions (this is probably the hardest part).

• If it will take longer than two minutes I add the task to my Great Big Book of Everything (I really don't call it that in real life...).  I then delete the message if it does not contain details I will need.  If there are details I move the e-mail to a folder called "Reference".

• I find that deleted and sent mail is very helpful, yet I don't want to waste server resources.  I can't tell you how many times keeping this e-mail has saved me from losing information I needed.  Once every two weeks I move my deleted and sent mail to a local file store.

Hopefully, one or two of these tips will prove to be useful to you!

Organization Tip #1: The Great Big Book of Everything

I have a huge personality flaw.  I like things to be neat and organized, yet, I'm neither of the two.  I've been working for a while on improving in this area.  I thought I'd share some of the things that have been working well.

Tip #1: The Great Big Book of Everything

For those parents of toddlers out there you probably know where I came up with the title for this post. If not and you're interested see this. The concept of this  tip came from my years of working with aerospace engineers at AlliedSignal.  I noticed that they all carried around these geeky little books that they scrawled copious notes into.  After working with them enough to realize they never lost anything I tried to embrace the idea in my IT world.  Today I use my book for two items.  The first is my todo list.  Yeah, I know you can use Outlook to organize and mange your tasks, but the problem is that most tasks come up while I'm away from my PC.  I keep a running task list on a page and check them off as I go.  The second activity I use the book for is for note taking.  I scribble all my notes and thoughts into the book.  While this sounds like a simple improvement it actually has worked wonders for me.  I can produce notes from months (even years) ago with ease.

Some of my old IT peers laugh at my 'non-technical' solution while they punch around on their Palms and Pocket PCs.  But at the end of the day there is not better medium for taking quick and detailed notes as good old paper (a Tablet PC running OneNote is getting close but my old book is still more efficient and practical).  Try using grafiti to dictate a voicemail.  I look forward to the day when I can give it up for a digital approach, but I have seen one yet.  In the meantime here are a few more tips to this approach:

• Invest in a good solid journal book.  I use an accounting ledger.  This is one solid book.  I often demonstrate this by picking the book up by one page and shaking it (after 30-40 demos it still like new).  These books will set you back a bit (around $50), but not having to search for lost notes will more than make up for it.  Here's a link to the exact book I use.

• Don't mix tasks on a page.  I never write notes on my task page and vise versa.  Keep these separate or you'll have a huge mess.

• I draw a quick square before each task.  I do this for two reasons.  First the square acts as a bullet for the new task (some tasks take more than one line).  Secondly, once I finish the task I check off the box and I know I'm done.

• I don't use the book for my calendar or contacts.  Get a cheap palm for that.  Since leaving the corporate world and working for a church I find I don't need to carry a copy of my calendar around.  At most I have 2-3 meetings a day.  Unlike the old days where it was not unlikely to have meetings double, even triple booked for any given hour.

If you're looking for a quick and easy solution for tracking your notes and todos this trick just might do the job.