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November 27, 2007
Digging out from an email landfill
I just got back from a week of being on vacation and had 1,155 new emails waiting for me. I told my sister this and she gasped and said, "If I got to work and had that many emails I would just turn around and go back home!"
I am one of those people that takes every vacation day offered to me (about 5 weeks per year). I fully believe in unhooking completely now and again to get some perspective and freedom from the daily grind. I've had to get really good with my systems to make that work so that time off doesn't feel like digging out of the bottom of an endless landfill when I come back.
It took me about 3 hours to bring those 1,100+ down to zero. Here's what I did:
First, I knew the morning I got back to work I'd have about 6x more input than normal, so I blocked that extra time on my calendar to give myself the time I would need to get it processed. I think this is essential. There is no way a week of email can be processed in the same time I normally allow. I need a cushion of extra time that first morning back.
Then, I followed the 4D's:
1. I looked for the ones to DELETE. Those are easy. I scanned by sender and subject line. A huge number of them were spam or close to it. Amazing how sheer volume like 1,100+ emails also changes my standards on "nice to reads" now being deletes instead. Another day some of those might have gotten my attention, but not with this kind of volume.
2. I looked for the ones I could DO in less than two minutes and handled those. Many of those were quick read and delete/file or quick replies. Subject lines are usually a good indication of whether something can be done in less than 2 minutes. A good chunk got handled through this cut.
3. Next I looked for anything I could DELEGATE. That took more careful reading and considering. Anything I handed off to someone or someone else got filed and then tracked on either a Waiting For list or Agenda list.
4. What I was left with were about 50 emails that made it past Delete, Do & Delegate, which meant they needed to be DEFERRED. I scanned those subject lines, grouped some of the threads together to see the latest, opened up a few of them if I needed to get more information, and took a further cut at ones I knew I would not be taking action on right away. I moved those deferred emails to the best project, topic or Actions email folder and captured my next action on a list. I was then left with about another 20 that I planned on doing right then, but would take me longer than 2 minutes to finish. One or two I ended up changing my mind on and moving over to a list after all to be done later, but I did get lots of good work done in that time. By noon, my Inbox was down to zero.
My best advice is to give yourself the gift of time to get everything back in control again. Whether that's after a vacation, after the weekend or after a long meeting--a little time with yourself and your systems can do wonders.
Posted by Kelly at 11:30 AM | Comments (8)
November 12, 2007
Have to or choose to?
What if you looked at everything on your To Do lists, personally and professionally, as things you are choosing to do, rather than having to do? Would it change your frustration, procrastination or whatever other ___ations show up when you look at some of the items on your lists? Or some of the meetings you think you have to go to? Or some of the projects you have to finish?
I was sitting waiting for a meeting to start today and the other person was 40 minutes late. As the time stretched on I found myself getting more annoyed and was scripting in my mind what I would say when they showed up. Then I thought--wait a minute--I'm choosing to be here. I can leave or I can stay. I have other things I can do while I'm waiting ( a primary reason I love having my GTD system be portable.) The meeting was valuable for me whenever they showed up. That simple awareness snapped me out of my upset. The person eventually showed up giving the standard 'Sorry I'm late,' but we moved on and had a great meeting. As a side note, what the person did, however, is train me that they are not someone who manages their agreements very well. Good to know for next time.
Of course we all have things we have to do in our jobs in order to get paid, even some things we don't like. But aren't we really choosing to have this job versus another one? I imagine there are a ton of other jobs any of us could choose instead. Some part of you chose the one you have. How you choose to relate to it is up to you.
Perhaps this is one of those that is sometimes easier said than done...but I remain the eternal optimist.
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
- William James
Posted by Kelly at 03:37 PM | Comments (2)
November 08, 2007
Action versus Waiting For
A key distinction with your pending work is what you can take action on versus what you are waiting on. Those are two very different buckets. When you can take action, it's an Action item. When you are waiting, on someone or something, it's a Waiting For item.
For those of you in the habit of using your email Inbox as the catch all To Do list for both things you need to do and track other people are doing, try this: create two email folders called @Action and @Waiting For and move your emails into either of those two folders. When you're looking for something to do, all of your actionable emails are already in the @Action folder. When you need to look for what you're waiting on, pop over to the @Waiting For folder. Easy! If you're feeling particularly inspired, take time and move out all of the trash, reference and backlog from your Inbox too. Yes, it's OK to have an empty Inbox. In fact, you just might find yourself bouncing off the walls with excitement and freed up mental energy not having to recycle over your choices when it's sitting as an amorphous blob in the Inbox.
One of my favorite tips & tricks to share with people is to create an email rule to copy emails you send, where you need to track a response, and have them automatically go to the Waiting For email folder. I've written out instructions on how to do that for some of the key programs I work with:
Posted by Kelly at 12:39 PM | Comments (3)
November 04, 2007
The 2AM Worry Club
Any of you in the 2AM Worry Club? You're sleeping peacefully and your inner committee wakes you bolt upright in bed to remind you of something you missed, need to do, should have done, need to track down or have to figure out. With reasoning out the window, some part of you wonders if maybe your boss/coworker/client is up too and you should just call? Sure! They'll just love that.
In my experience, the reason that happens is that in the mind's effort to be a loyal servant for feeding the conscious brain incompletions, it has no idea that 2AM is not the best time to be thinking about that thing. So for lack of a better choice, it thinks it should worry about it to at least make some progress on it. Next time, try writing it down. It's hard to organize it in your brain on a mental "not now" list when that's not how your brain is designed to work. Consider that it's your brain's job to feed you what it thinks is not complete. Writing it down is a way to bring it to completion, at least temporarily.
If I wake up with something on my mind, I write it down and leave it in a place I know I'll see when I get up in the morning. My mind lets it go. It doesn't mean I've solved the issue or problem, but it's off my mind. In the morning, I look at what I wrote and ask two questions: What's my desired outcome with this thing? What's the next action? Those answers go into my system: Calendar, Projects list, Action lists, Waiting For list or Someday/Maybe. Simple as that.
I'll often name something a Project that I'm just trying to get some clarity about. The Waiting For list is also brilliant for those 2AMers where I'm waiting to hear about or get resolution on something. The weekly review ties it all together to give me consistent review of all of these lists and to reinforce the idea that it's OK to let it go.
Do you have any 2AM kinds of things grabbing your attention? What would you call the project around any of that? What is your next action or is there anything you are waiting on?
Posted by Kelly at 04:51 PM | Comments (8)
