Processing time?

[Jamie Elis]

How long does it take you per item to process your current in box and does this differ from back log? Current items usually 3 per 10 minutes; backlog items it's 10 items in an hour. None of this includes items that you actaully do something on (2 minute rule tyupe items).

The three biggest time consumers are:
1)determining if I already have a project described for an item and whether it is active or SDMB.
2)finding an existing folder if there are multiple possibilities, for example, I want to keep this year's financial aid application in a folder next to last year's but I can't recall if I have last year's under "School:Tall Oaks Acad: Financial Aid "04: Elis, Robin" or the kid's name followed by that or what. or if it is in my financial drawer. I have been making "dummy" folders that tell me where to look as I go along and that helps when they are already made.
My file system encmpasses 8 drawers of whioch one if only financial, one is only things pertainin to the home.

3. capturing brain storms that are either ideas or insights related to exisitng or new projects.

I wish I could go faster. I have plain vanilla Palm and have projects in a Memo category A to Z. Each project title starts with Area of Focus and Responsiblity(e.g., HOME-Inside, HOME-Outside, FAM (family), MONEY(anything financial), PROF (Professional), SELF).

 

[eno]

2)finding an existing folder if there are multiple possibilities, for example, I want to keep this year's financial aid application in a folder next to last year's but I can't recall if I have last year's under "School:Tall Oaks Acad: Financial Aid "04: Elis, Robin" or the kid's name followed by that or what. or if it is in my financial drawer. I have been making "dummy" folders that tell me where to look as I go along and that helps when they are already made.
My file system encmpasses 8 drawers of whioch one if only financial, one is only things pertainin to the home.

Maybe putting all of your reference that you feel is using more than one standard of filing/sorting should go into the inbox and be processed/sorted with a standard you choose beforehands? For financial things I recommend sorting by date; that way you can easily eliminate those that you don't need anymore (various periods might apply to your records, though).

 

[Jamie Elis]

yes! $$ by date

Thank you! I was thinking about that and thought I was starting to get obsessive!When I am done with my current big project I am going to put in some dividers for years and then separate.

 

[Brent]

How long does it take you per item to process your current in box and does this differ from back log? Current items usually 3 per 10 minutes; backlog items it's 10 items in an hour. None of this includes items that you actaully do something on (2 minute rule tyupe items).

Less than a minute per item. When I process my inbox, I'm deciding on the fate of each item (Action, file, trash, etc.). I'm not doing the thing that the item implies. I can rip open an envelope, realize that it contains a financial statement, and file it in under a minute. Trashing junk mail takes much less than that, obviously.

On a typical day, I toss my mail and tickler items into my inbox, then process it all within three minutes. Actually performing the required actions on those tickler items and within the mail takes much longer, of course.