I am, what some people might call, a GTD kinda guy. But while I do not like to point out my imperfections, I have not always been this productive.
Let me quickly explain.
Looking at my email in box sometimes, ok almost all of the time, made my mind race and blood pressure rise. I would scan the first couple of emails and be reminded of meetings I need to attend, meetings I should have attended and also thing that need to get done…yesterday. I start to panic…and the day just started.
I found a better way that works for me, and might help you out. Every morning I take my in box to zero and here is how I do it.
As I scan my emails I move them into one of the 4 emails folders.
- Done – Any email that was a follow up and requires no further action.
- Todo – Something that requires an action.
- Follow up – I either drag an email to this folder or when sending an email, that requires follow up, I will bcc myself on the email. I have a rule in my email clients to move all bcc emails, from me, to this folder.
- Info – This could be announcement a date change to a meeting or something that I would like to find fast. I normally go to this folder and move older items to the done folder.
That is it, so simple it is crazy.
When I am scanning my email and moving them to the correct action folder there are 2 more things that I do:
- Take action on emails that take less than 2 minutes to complete.
- Delegate, before moving to the todo folder and bcc’ing myself for follow up.
It feels great to move something to the "done" folder.
I do want to point out these practices came from ideas I found in the GTD book and from the 43 folders blog.