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December 15, 2006

The dreaded inbox

Things seem to be winding down in the corporate world. The number of emails in my inbox is decreasing and the proportion of automated out of office replies is growing exponentially. With a little down time handy, this is a good time to brush up on your processing skills - something that can be essential when you return from a vacation to the deluge of input.

Tip for the season: Love your inbox, and it will love you.

Seriously, the number one reason people procrastinate on processing the inbox is the dread factor. You've been there, we all have. It slowly begins to increase in volume, piling up little by little, threatening to spill out and take over.

So why is an in-tray or a screen of emails scary? Everything in your life either attracts or repels you to some degree, and the inbox is no exception. I've identified these reasons for the dreaded inbox phenomenon:

Be it the inbox on your desktop, or the one on top of your desk, here are some keys for making processing painless...

  • Sprinkle your inbox with things you like. Put everything, including your personal life, into one system. By having events, ideas, and reading material that you look forward to in the same collection bucket, the weight and gravity of the whole thing diminishes. If you're a GTD Connect member, login to checkout this great anecdote from a member who is putting cartoons in his tickler file. (Thanks, Pack!)

  • Yes, it often looks bigger than you. But I assure you, it is nothing more than a sequence of triggers and reminders. Don't let the pile intimidate you, you don't have to tackle the whole thing all at once (that would be impossible). All you need to do is focus on the very next item.

  • Make processing time enjoyable. Yes, it can be done! Listen to your favorite piece of music, brew a fresh cup of coffee, choose a time of day that you simply love. If you're going to be handling your workflow anyway, why not choose a great attitude.

  • Regress. Children love sorting through a big cluttered box! Let your curiosity be the driver, give all of your attention to each item, ask yourself the key questions "What is it?" and "Is it actionable" and sooner than you think you will see empty.

I hope these tips help you get into the flow of processing. For further reading about attraction and repulsion, check out these articles from our coaches:

Keeping You In-Box "Real" by Julie Daniel

Are You Attracted To Your Lists? by Meg Edwards

Yum or Yuk? by James Daniel

Posted by Lisa at December 15, 2006 10:22 AM

Comments

Lisa, thanks for posting the links to other articles in the davidco library...very useful and effective for me. Jim Daniels yum/yuk taxonomy particularly so for me.

My filing system is yum--one context next action list is not...now I know where to go to work.

Enjoy your weekend.

Posted by: Joe Ely at December 15, 2006 12:55 PM

I think the main reason my in-box repels me is that, very simply, the process of thinking about what to do with something takes a lot of mental energy. I know there will be things in there that have vague meaning to me, that I won't be able to make a snap decision about, that I'll have to actually pause and think about. And this is actually harder for my brain to handle than almost all other difficult actions I take in my job.

Posted by: Crawdaddy at December 18, 2006 06:22 PM

Lisa, Great tips! I find too that people get repelled by their inbox because they think they need to DO everything that lands there. PROCESSING/DECIDING the action is not the same thing as doing the action. Separating those two makes getting the email Inbox to zero much easier. Of course, there are some that will be able to be done in less than 2 minutes, which extends into Doing. But generally, I find I am able to plow through pages and pages of email in a short amount of time when I stay on Processing. That also gives me a much better sense of the overall picture of what's there for when I go back to Do.

- Kelly

Posted by: Kelly at December 19, 2006 09:46 AM

Great comments everyone!

Kelly- right on the mark, thanks for adding this! I also find that the processing/doing distinction is a huge help in making the processing piece do-able (now there's a play on words for you). If it's taking someone all day to process, I like to remind them they are probably not processing at all, but actually doing the work as it shows up (which is usually not the most effective way of working).

Posted by: Lisa at December 19, 2006 10:12 AM

Dread keeps us from acting in many life situations. But as with the inbox, if you take a breath and face it head on, it's almost never as bad as you've built it up to be in your mind. That's what I tell my clients, and that's what works for me too.
~Monica

Posted by: Monica Ricci at January 3, 2007 06:36 AM