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.

 

My scattered brain

Lately, I have been working on uncluttering my inbox. Sure, in the spirit of Getting Things Done, I "get In to empty" every day, but I realized I've been processing waaay too many messages that have little or no relevance to me, and handling too many pieces of paper. I want to share some of the things I've done, and hear from you about additional steps you may have taken to trim down your inbox.

Spam filtering

I've experimented with a number of add-on spam filters for Outlook (most of them have free trials) and have settled on Cloudmark Desktop, and am quite happy with it. It's very easy to use, and is based on a 'neighborhood watch' kind of model - all users are able to report things they believe are spam, and messages flagged by enough people are reviewed and added to the spam list, if appropriate. Likewise, if you find a message that you think was mis-identified as spam, you can unblock it which unblocks it for you (this sometimes happens when people who are too lazy to unsubscribe to messages just hit the Block button on the toolbar instead). At right is a snapshot of my stats since I started using it in January, for perspective.
Unsubscribe more aggressively
I've been paying more attention to newsletters, Google alerts, and other recurring email traffic and unsubscribing from them if I notice that I always (or almost always) delete them without reading. Same goes for offers from vendors I've purchased from, particularly if I'm no longer using their product.
I've also been unsubscribing to physical mail, as well. Letting magazine subscriptions end, returning unsolicited or unwanted mail (in their own postpaid envelopes with a note asking them to remove me from their mailing lists), and so forth.
Deleting, rather than responding to more email
I'm getting better at not jumping into the fray on email threads that don't directly pertain to me or my primary goals. I'm seeing a gradual, but persisten, decline in mail volume from this. Once I realize I no longer want to follow an email thread, I use ClearContext's "Unsubscribe" button to make it disappear from my view (don't fret - it puts these things in a special Unsubscribed folder where you can go re-subscribe if you make a mistake).
Automate recurring bills
Last year, I wrote about "outsourcing the drudgery" in my life. I've now gone a bit further and set up every service I can as an "autopay" account, and converting to electronic statements if they offer them (this allows me to easily use NitroPDF to mark them up and forward them for expense reporting, and makes it easy for me to file the statements electronically so I can retrieve them if I need to.
Back off on the email "whack a mole"
When I first discovered the joy of an empty email inbox, I constantly watched it and tried to keep it empty. Now, I only "work" my email inbox about 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the afternoon, and sometimes a quick check in the evening. And I still get to empty every day.
This helps partially because it prevents "rathole emailing" since many problems have resolved themselves by the time I see them. It also helps because the limited time windows help me do a better job of sticking to the 2-minute rule, etc.
I shared my tips for getting a very large email inbox down to a very empty one a while back - if your inbox is overloaded, this may help.
And I'm still looking for more ways. What about you? Any tricks you've discovered that you'd like to share?

Are you wired for clutter?

Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project has a great quiz/commentary on the subject of clutter, packrat tendencies, etc. I definitely learned a lot from her article - both about myself and about ways to declutter my house. Click over and take the quiz.

In addition to her comments and topic areas, I find that lack of good storage space is often a big factor in whether my "stuff" becomes clutter or not. If I don't have a place to put something, or if that place is inconvenient to get to, then that increases the likelihood that I'll create more clutter.

One of the "project candidates" I'm considering for this summer is to pick some key problem areas in my house and figure out how to resolve the "inadequate storage" problems they present. Of course, there is also an element of procrastination here, as well. I've bought a couple of storage racks to hang from my garage ceiling, but have been putting off installing them, and I have a couple of cabinets I still need to assemble for additional storage. The Projects portion of my list is something I've skipped in my last 3 weekly reviews - time to get back on the wagon, I suppose.

What about you - any major epiphanies for dealing with clutter?

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Putting PowerPoint on a diet

One of the consequences of my dabblings with Beyond Bullet Points (see related items, below for more) is that my PowerPoints now have lots of graphics, which often makes them huge. This has made them a challenge to email, send around for collaboration, etc.

I have found an awesome solution: PPTMinimizer. This product's sole mission in life is to help you squash your bloated PowerPoint files down to a much more friendly size (and it also optimizes presentation files from StarOffice and OpenOffice). It does its job by using a number of techniques to reduce the size, including optimizing the pictures and embedded objects (like graphs that are fed by Excel data, for example) to make them more space-efficient.

You simply open one or more files with PPTMinimizer, set your options (or use the defaults like I do) and click a button to optimize the files. You have the option of saving to a new name or replacing the original, and you can also drag & drop files onto the PPTMinimizer window to add them to a list.

The coolest function, in my opinion, is it's Outlook integration. Any time I send an email that has a PowerPoint deck attached to it, PPTMinimizer displays a dialog asking me whether I want to optimize it or not. If I say "Yes," it quickly optimizes it (most files take only a few seconds), reattaches the optimized file to the email and completes the Send process.

If you want to try it out, you can download a free trial version which lets you optimize something like a dozen files. I got to about 7 optimizations and paid the $29.95 (US pricing) to buy the key to convert my copy to a full version. By the way, they offer quantity discounts and there is an enterprise version available that can crawl your local and network drives and optimize any presentations it finds.

As you can see from the screen grab I've included here, the results are impressive. I routinely reduce the size of my files by over 60% - way cool.

Related items:

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Create the soundtrack of your life

Hey - why not create an online radio station that fits you perfectly? If you haven't heard about it, Pandora does just that. You create any number of stations that match your musical taste.

It's pretty simple and it's free. You simply create a new station, enter the name of an artist, and Pandora plays one of their songs to confirm they've got the right artist. Pandora then uses the power of the Human Genome Project to find other artists with similar qualities and creates a streaming radio station for you.

As songs play, you can click on Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down icons to help them learn more about what you like or don't like.

You can check it out without even registering, then if you like it just create an account (your song doesn't even stop playing).

If you don't want to be chained to your computer to listen, there is also a fee option. That is $36 per year and allows you to stream to your home or to certain mobile phones.

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[Review] Ignited!

I've been reading Vince Thompson's awesome book "Ignited!" and I want to share my findings with you. For me, one of the measures of a book is how likely I am to give someone else a copy (at the end of this post, you'll find my list of my "most often given" books). For the first time I can recall, I gave a copy of this book to a friend of mine before I even finished it -- Chapter 2 had my head buzzing.

This book is geared toward middle managers, and Vince spends a lot of time on how to improve your ability to "lead in a limited space" (I love that phrase). However, I think anyone working in an organization can learn from it, whether they're managers or not (or in the middle or not).

The book is divided into three parts, each with a distinct focus.

Figure out where the "You are here" dot is on your map

Section 1 focuses on you at a personal level -- figuring out what your opportunities, challenges, and key relationships are. This section does a great job of getting you to analyze where you are in your world, how you interact with others, and how your emotional responses can help or hinder your progress.

In the aforementioned Chapter 2, there's a technique which helps you map out your "universe" of relationships. In this chapter, Vince guides you through mapping your manager's universe, and assessing the quality of your relationships with key stakeholders to help you determine where you can contribute to make a big difference in your manager's success. The idea is that you will make your own life better if you're seen as a contributor to your manager's success. The simple tools and techniques here make this a piece of cake to do, and I think it's extremely powerful. This chapter alone was worth the price of the book for me (and you can apply the same process to your spouse, or other key relationships in your life).

Create value and light up the network

Section 2 is all about creating value for your organization by engaging others and honing your story, strategy, and interpersonal engagements to build your network of influence. In this section you focus on creating value in your organization by improving processes, becoming a better "connector" of people and ideas, figuring out what your market reality looks like, and more. There are also techniques to refine your story and clarify your strategy for driving success. Finally, you "Ignite" others in your organization to help support your activities, goals, etc. and take it to the streets.

My favorite chapter in this section deals with mapping out your landscape and tapping into the expertise of your customers to improve the quality of your "product." This also provides some good ideas for recruiting customers and partners as part of your team as evangelists.

Growing, accelerating, and sustaining

Section 3 discusses how (and why) to sell your story so you dramatically increase your impact and leverage beyond your immediate sphere of influence. This is a short, but meaty, section that discusses how to sell your ideas up the chain (both inside and outside your company), and how to effectively tackle and resolve the inevitable challenges that come up along the way. The discussion of the "right" and "wrong" ways to sell is very good.

My favorite chapter in this section is one on "Your Own Sense of Balance," which helps you understand how personal clarity, focus, and commitment are necessary but not sufficient for success. There is some advice here about leveraging your "personal board of directors," establishing a meaningful set of metrics to track your progress, and keeping yourself sane, safe, and sound so you don't burn yourself out once you've got the fire going.

In summary, I definitely recommend this book - spend a few minutes with it and you'll figure out why it's made its way on to my "most often given" list. Oh - and to find out more about Vince and his book, check out the companion site, BeIgnited (there is also an animated intro from Vince there - I thought it was very cool).

Dwayne's "most often given" books:

  • "Mastery," by George Leonard - a great gift for graduates and people going through big transitions
  • "Managing with Aloha," by Rosa Say - a tremendous book on management philosophy, told in a powerful way
  • "Two Weeks to a Breakthrough," by Lisa Haneberg - the most effective, repeatable process I've found for making blowout progress toward any goal
  • "Is Your Genius At Work?," by Dick Richards - an excellent "workshop style" book to help anyone trying to find their passion / raison d'etre
  • "High Impact Middle Management," by Lisa Haneberg - a very practical (but still very insightful) set of techniques, particularly good for new managers
  • "Ignited!," by Vince Thompson - see review above

By the way - I also give away (or refer people to) quite a few other books including all the ones you see in the left-hand column on my site, but these 6 seem to be the most "prescribed" books in my library.

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