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November 25, 2008

Plowing through email

My email Inbox is at zero at least once a day. It takes me about 60-90 minutes of processing time each day to plow through it.

When I tell people that, they run a few critical assumptions on me:

- She doesn't work at my company
- That must be ALL she does all day long
- She can't really be reading any of it
- She must get a lot of spam
- She must not get a lot of email
- She must not be very busy

Of course, I'm not in your world, your job, your Inbox. But how about considering this instead: I have a seamless process for handling it with the least amount of effort as possible. I've written about that process in a couple of previous articles, if you're interested:

Becoming the master of your email Inbox
Digging out from an email landfill

It doesn't matter if you get 10 emails a day or 800. I've coached people on both ends of the spectrum, and I'll tell you, stress can show up however many you get. You'll never plow through to the Holy Grail of Inbox Zero unless you give yourself a clear process (the GTD 4D's works wonders) and the time (most people need about an hour a day just for their own processing time.)

Posted by Kelly at 08:12 AM | Comments (8)

November 24, 2008

Best & Worst Practices of Organize

Moving on to part three in our enthralling five-part series on the best and worst practices of GTD: Mastering Workflow. This week we're on to Organize. Often a crowd-pleaser, organize is where you get to decide where to put things. If you're at all familiar with GTD you know that David Allen does not tell you which tools to use--GTD is tool agnostic--so those choices are up to you. Not saying all tools, software programs, paper planners work seamlessly with GTD, but where you organize your stuff is up to you. GTD gives you the best practices of how to organize, not where.

There are 5 key "buckets" to consider when organizing your work:

Reference - no action, you just need to hold on to it.
Someday/Maybe - no current action, but you want to incubate it for possible later action.
Projects - a list of your current outcomes that require more than one action to complete
Next Actions - one list or sorted by context, to manage your physical, visible next steps (project related and not)
Waiting For - actions that require you to track that you are waiting on someone or something.

In the GTD workflow diagram, Organize is the outer ring, after you've processed it.

Best Practice: easily retrievable in clear categories
Worst Practice: unclear Stuff, confused piles, and lists

Tips & Tricks for Organize:

- Keep it simple. The number one problem I see with the majority of list managers out there (sorry, but especially the ones that self-deem themselves "GTD-friendly") is that they are too complicated and anything but friendly. Too many features actually can cause stress, not reduce it. Read my post on What Makes a Good GTD list manager.

- Pick an action list manager that attracts you more than repels you. You should like your total-life reminder system in order to be motivated to use it.

- Make your system portable. If you're tracking "@home" next actions on your work computer, and don't have that list with you when you are home, the system will fall apart. If you can't sync to a handheld, printing your electronic lists works just fine.

- It's got to be at least as good, or better, than keeping it in your head. Otherwise, why would your brain want to let go of stuff? Your brain has to know there's a better tool to do the job or it won't let itself get fired from trying to be your To Do list.

- Know your style and choose around that. If you're not an electronic person, let go of the idea that an electronic list manager is going to manage your life. If you're a paper person, go with a paper planner. Don't force yourself into something that doesn't match your natural style and creative expression.

- Let go of the idea that there is a perfect list manager out there, if that's stopping you from diving fully into GTD.

Your list manager isn't the only thing to consider with organize. There's also your desk setup, your hard and soft-copy filing, your tools on-the-go, your project support etc. Short of repeating what's in the GTD book, let me leave you with this: How easy is it for you to clear your head and put it into trusted places you know you can easily get your hands on again when you need it? That's the key to organize.

Next topic will be the ever-important critical success factor of Review. Ahhh...the elixir...the special sauce...the glue that keeps this all together.

Posted by Kelly at 09:30 AM | Comments (11)

November 03, 2008

Best & Worst Practices of Process

This is part two in a five part series on the best & worst practices of GTD: Mastering Workflow. This week we're covering stage two: Process. Also known as the decision-making, defining or clarifying stage, this is where you are making decisions about the "stuff" you've collected in your Inboxes. There are a few key questions that get asked when you are processing something:

Best Practice: make decisions about your stuff when it shows up
Worst Practice: make decisions after it blows up

Here's the big, obvious best practice of Process: You're going to have to make a decision eventually, why not make it with the least amount of effort and attention when you first handle it? I'm not talking about intuitively holding on something before making a final decision (should I do this or not?)--there are times when holding off on making a decision is the best thing to do--I'm talking about those decisions that don't go away just because you close the email and go on to the next one.

Tips & tricks for Process:

- The biggest improvement opportunity I see with people around Process is giving it enough time. It takes about 30 seconds, on average, to process each piece of stuff/input you get. If you get 60 emails a day, you're gonna need 30 minutes just to Process it. It won't get to zero on it's own. Most execs I coach need about an hour to an hour and a half per day just for processing.

- Get super clear on your next action. The clearer the better to reflect your very next physical, visible step. If you capture you're next action as "Talk to Bill" but you know you need to update the proposal before you can talk to him, "Update the proposal" is what goes on the next actions list, not Talk to Bill. If you really need to capture Talk to Bill as the next sequential next action, store it with project plans, just not the next actions list.

- Don't give more time to things than they deserve. If you can complete something in less than two minutes, handle it when it first shows up.

- Decide before you organize is a good rule of thumb. If you haven't decided your next action on something, organizing it into a neat pile won't free your mind of it. Your brain will just have a neater pile to stress about.

Next up...best & worst practices of Organize.

Posted by Kelly at 08:41 AM | Comments (7)