Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

In sanity: Tips for inbox sanity

If you're a "Getting Things Done" follower, you know the value of fewer "inboxes" to process. Reducing the number of places you have to look for information as inputs into your life, the better.

Here are a few tips I've picked up along the way to help reduce the number of nesting places for inputs.

  1. When someone asks you to do or consider something, ask them to send you an email about it. Just say, "That's interesting - can you send me an email about that? Otherwise, I'll just forget it." This technique:
    • puts the burden back on the requester
    • puts the information into an inbox you're already planning to process (your email inbox) which makes it easier for you to delegate it, etc.
    • can sometimes cause things to go away - if they don't feel attached enough to it to send you an email, you're off the hook
  2. Send yourself an email about it. If, like me, you carry a PDA and you have an idea, a thought, something you want to remind yourself about later, etc. just drop yourself an email about it. This technique:
    • puts the information into an inbox you're already planning to process
    • provides a quick way to capture a fleeting thought in a way that allows you to better define it later (if I enter things directly into a task list from my PDA, I'm more likely to leave it in a vague form that never gets acted upon)
  3. Send yourself a voice mail about it. When you're driving, call one of the voicemail boxes that you process regularly and leave a quick voice mail about it. Then, when you process the voice mail, you can drop it into your trusted system. This technique
    • puts the information into an inbox you're already planning to process
    • provides a quick way to capture a fleeting thought in a way that allows you to better define it later
    • doesn't require writing or typing

Do you have any additional tips you've learned that make your journey toward mastery any easier? I'd love to hear what you've learned.

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