An epiphany re my inbox!

[chinarut]

Maybe I misunderstood something, but why your Gmail Inbox is never going to be empty? I empty it once a day, just click Select: "All" and then "Archive". Moreover, you can emulate "filling in the traditional sense" with labels, if you want to.

wow...this sounds like a *great* idea...ever since my laptop crapped out on me and I went gung ho web-mail (losing my GTD Add-in in the process) - I'd been trying to figure out how to effectively get my inbox to zero, not waste time writing NAs, and keep my system simple and online on web!

If anyone has other suggestions for web-dominant paradigms, I really would love to hear more from you.

now to figure out what to do with all my OLD gmail labels...

 

[brewdogmike]

I've been a heavy Outlook user up until now, and the problem I've been having has been caused by the convenience of dragging and dropping emails into folders.

The problem is, when I go back to review the folders, I have to read through all the emails again to figure out what action I should take (or should have taken back when I got the email). I'm getting rid of the Outlook folders -- if an email itself is worth keeping, it gets printed and filed. The action steps go on the calendar or appropriate list.

I got rid of the @Action folder too, because it was getting ignored. Now I've got a !Today folder just for today-specific actions.

Anyone else have Outlook folder overload?

 

[spectecGTD]

This may or may not work for you, but in addition to my project-specific folders and @Action folder, I also have a @Review Weekly and @Review Monthly folders in my email. It's amazing how many things I simply move into the Weekly and Monthly folders because my N/A is to defer. Sometimes the "defer" decision is because I just don't want or need to deal with the email until a later time, sometimes because I know the situation will/may resolve itself without my taking further action, and sometimes there is a time-specific decision that is "not now".

As with any system, this only works if you rigorously follow the protocol for the folders. You must actually open the weekly folder at least at the beginning of the week and open the monthly folder at the beginning of the month. For example, if you send me an email that says "lets have lunch sometime next week", I'll send you one back that says something to the effect that "Sounds good - I'll get back to you on Monday. Who's paying?" and then it goes into my "Review Weekly" because the first thing I do on Monday AM (or even Sunday PM) is go through that folder.

 

[andersons]

The problem is, when I go back to review the folders, I have to read through all the emails again to figure out what action I should take (or should have taken back when I got the email).

I found that this is a huge disadvantage. I don't want to re-read emails to re-compute what action I could take. If I think about the action once, then put it in my system with all the rest of my actions, it will get done.

Maybe if everyone who emails me starts putting clear NAs in the subject line, I'll be able to use the email itself as the NA reminder. (As in when hell freezes over.)

I do not print the emails, though. I keep them to reply to later. And I find digital searching and filing less overhead than paper, especially with Gmail.

Anyone else have Outlook folder overload?

Not Outlook folders, but don't like navigating through similar folders in Pine. That's why I'm loving Gmail. No more folders needed! No filing whatsoever! I can find an old email in Gmail much faster than I can pull one out of my Pine or paper folders.

But all NAs go on my lists with the others. Unlike spectecGTD, I unfortunately do not do well with creating more things I must review.

 

[spectecGTD]

Yes, you raise a valid point with respect to re-reading emails.
I should clarify that using my system only certain emails go into the "review weekly/monthly" folders. Those which I can handle using the 2-minute rule and those which deserve immediate attention still get handled in the normal manner. And if I don't have 2 minutes I will move others into the "Action" folder knowing that I have to get back to them ASAP. My entire focus is keeping that inbox empty, and I do mean empty. However, in my situation I receive many emails which can be scanned in a few seconds and safely dispatched to the weekly/monthly folder.

BTW, I too find it aggravating when people are too lazy or lack enough understanding of what they are writing to compose a decent subject line. It would be nice if they cared enough to learn how helpful this is to them and their correspondents. One tactic I use is to change the subject line to something meaningful when or if I reply to them. At least then if they respond further to me I have a useful subject line next time around.

And of course I generally delete or just refuse to answer any emails which have no subject line or simply "RE:", unless I know the sender is someone who just has poor email communication skills.

 

[scott m]

5-7 subfolders for email Action folder

I recommend building 5-7 subfolders to manage your email Actions. I have taught this technique to over 300 people, and I think it has value. Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. One action bucket seemed too simple for my email. Here's the additional folders.
1_Monday
2_Tuesday
3_Wednesday
4_Thursday
5_Friday

Saturday and Sunday are optional. Naming them this way makes them sort correctly in the window.

At the end of every day, your inbox should have been emptied at least once, and your Daily Action Folder should be empty. Everything in it is either deleted, filed in a reference folder, or defered to another day. This way your action folder doesn't become a bottomless pit.

The daily process: Empty your inbox. Check your Waiting For and followup or delete them as needed. Open today's Daily Action Folder and keep it open. Check and empty your inbox as needed throughout the day. Even if it is a to-do for today, unless it is a 2-min. action, drag it to today's daily folder. Always go back to your daily action folder and keep it open. It contains every email you have already seen that needs to be handled today, and nothing else. Your inbox only contains emails you haven't read yet. The focus is awesome.

Scott
moehrings@alltel.net

 

[tuqqer]

Oh, I completely relate to this massive insight, taxgeek. It was the biggest one for me as well (from the book). It all stemmed from that idea that once you "pick something up", you deal with it then, even if it's to figure out where it belongs.

Because I only have one Context—LIFE IN FRONT OF HOME OFFICE COMPUTER (pathetic perhaps, but recognizing this truth was my Second Insight)— my Inbox was one of the bigger places I needed to work with. So, after thinking about it for awhile, I contacted an AppleScript writer, Bryan Harris, and had him write what I think is one of the best GTD "applications" ever designed. It only works with Macs OSX, and for Entourage, but it's free to anyone who wants it. Here's what it does:

** When an email comes in that needs to be dealt with at some later time (ranging from 1 minute, to 10 hours, to 10 days, to 10 years, etc), you hit Control-P for "Postpone". The following window comes up:

** You enter in any amount of time you want to postpone, again from a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months.

** These each get stored in a folder you've set up, called Postponed.

** When the set time comes up, that particular email will get thrown back into the Inbox. To prevent confusion and mark it as such, the word "POST" gets placed in front of the Subject line.

** If you still need more time to deal with that email, you can simply run the script again, as described above. Each time you re-postpone the email, it sticks another "POST" in the subject line.

Since hiring Bryan to design this beauty 2 years ago, I use this script virtually every hour of my waking day. It's super fast, and my most effective way for outlining my plans of action. And the side benefit is that, even with 200 emails a day, my Inbox is almost always truly empty.

I'm no expert at GTD. I struggle with a couple areas in my organization of life. But GTD has been a life saver for me, and I know that I'm getting more of my dreams accomplished than ever before. And at 49, this is one meaningful accomplishment for me.

You can download this little Entourage utility at:
http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/

Do a search for "Postpone" and the script called Postpone, Delayed Send will show up. If you've never installed an AppleScript into Entourage, just read the how to there at the main page.

And if you find the script useful, just email Bryan and tell him so. I'm sure he'd appreciate $5-10 as well.

Thanks for this post, texgeek. Brought back my gratitude for all of this.

tuqqer
http://www.howhealthworks.com

 

[andersons]

Yes, you raise a valid point with respect to re-reading emails.

Actually, I need to qualify my point too. I have 2 kinds of actionable emails:
1) I have to decide an action; it's not immediately obvious in the subject or body. Example: I get an email asking me to incorporate major changes into an upcoming event I have been planning for 3 months. Or information about a new funding opportunity.
2) The action itself is to spend time thoughtfully answering the email. Example: questions from students when I'm teaching a course.

For #1, I try to decide the action when I first read the email, put the NA in my system right away.

For #2, I flag them and go back and answer them in a big session more like you describe (but less disciplined/scheduled). Flagging is functionally equivalent to filing them in folders, but an easier/lazier way with my email clients. Of course I use the 2-minute rule here, too, and I sometimes modify it to a 5-minute rule or whatever seems most efficient.

BTW, I too find it aggravating when people are too lazy or lack enough understanding of what they are writing to compose a decent subject line. It would be nice if they cared enough to learn how helpful this is to them and their correspondents. One tactic I use is to change the subject line to something meaningful when or if I reply to them. At least then if they respond further to me I have a useful subject line next time around.

Fortunately, most university email I receive has a descriptive subject line. I've asked a couple other key people who email me to use specific subject lines, and they now do. However, I have helped a few people with their inboxes and have been appalled at the useless/missing subject lines, excessive quoting and cc-ing, incomprehensible body text, etc.

A minor annoyance I've had is email from friends who use it only recreationally and send all these forwarded stories and jokes. (Like that story about Nordstrom's cookie recipe.) Many times the forwarded story includes the header information from every time it got forwarded, plus many layers of quotes-of-quotes-of-quotes interspersed with "Isn't this funny?" I just delete them as soon as I glance at them and hope my friends will never ask me if I read them and get offended that I didn't. So far, so good.

Lots of great email tips in this thread.

 

[spectecGTD]

"Compose the email, THEN the subject line"

Yes, I totally agree - there have been lots of good email tips on this thread. Somewhere in the not-too-distant past I read the above tip either on this BB or somewhere else. (Maybe you posted it on another thread)

This practice has been extremely helpful to me. Often the descriptive subject line is clear before I even begin the email, but if that isn't the case then I just go ahead and write. In almost every instance the process of composing the email will produce an "aha" moment in which it becomes crystal clear what should appear in a truly useful subject line.