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August 18, 2008
The inbox: your loading dock of raw materials
If you are somewhat new to GTD and you are interested in implementing the principles in Getting Things Done, make sure that you actually get and use a magical little device called the inbox.
If you've read the book or been to a seminar, you know that the first phase of successfully managing your workflow is to collect whatever you've got your attention on. The basic principle of collecting is that you'll have a heck of an easier time managing an action or project to completion if you get it out of your head and into an objective trusted system outside of yourself. Otherwise, the thought or promise or commitment will just keep spinning inside your psyche, yelling for attention and draining your energy. If you've ever watched a GTD aficionado in action you've probably noticed them jotting occasional notes to themselves in the middle of meetings or in the middle of nowhere. Then, when they have the chance they spend some time to process what those notes really mean and determine what actions, if any, they are now committed to regarding what they've collected.
Think about GTD as an approach for successfully managing all of the agreements you have with yourself and others. In this approach, collecting and processing are the steps in which the agreements get manufactured. When you process something you've collected and actually define a new commitment, you literally create something out of nothing. You now have a future outcome where before there was nothing. Think about your actual physical inbox as one of the key loading docks for the raw materials that may become your commitments. If you don't actually use an inbox in this way, essentially your whole office, home, and/or psyche will become your inbox - and that can get awfully messy.
In the trenches of today's knowledge workers I've seen many variations on the concept of the in-box. For some, the in-box is a place where other people drop things off - like memos, reports, and mail. For others an inbox is where they keep all of their work-in-progress until they have time to do it. Still others have no idea why they'd even want to have a box called In anywhere near their desk.
Yes, the email and voice-mail inbox IS automatically filling up for us every day - so those are difficult collection places to miss. But remember that your physical inbox (or in-folder while you're traveling) can actually be one of the most important parts of your GTD system. Yes, it's a place for others to drop stuff for you. But more importantly, it's a place for you to drop all your own meeting notes, notes to self, and random stuff you haven't quite figured out until you've got a bit of processing time to make sense of it all and make some new agreements.
I'm curious: what's your favorite collection tool and how exactly do you use it?
Posted by mdolan at August 18, 2008 02:28 PM
Comments
Thanks for helping get my right-brained, borderline ADD life under control. After trying too many things, I've landed on the 3.5x5.5 lined-page Moleskine as my UCD...I never leave home without it. I feel a little awkward when I don't have it with me. My system then combines Outlook 2007 and a BlackBerry. Thanks again.
Posted by: Jim Petersen at August 19, 2008 05:29 AM
I second the pocket Moleskine, but the version I choose is the weekly planner/diary (mine happens to be the soft cover version). It has spaces for notes on days of the week on the left hand side and lined paper on the right hand side for note capture, etc. Not to mention useful info. in front and some blank pages for notes in back, AND a pocket in the back cover to tuck business cards, receipts, and/or more notes to empty into your inbox later.
This is the *perfect* capture device I can envision at this point in my evolution into the GTD practices (and admittedly, I'm a novice). But I love it because there's no menu or OS navigation or keyboard to get in the way. Just a click of the pen, a tug of the bookmark, jot it down in a second and *boom*, its done! I do use Google calendar for certain things to set up a reminder to be sent as a TXT message to my phone. But typing and setting up *all* appointments in that or Outlook, etc. seem over kill for everything. Most all my appointments can be covered and taken care of just fine by jotting them down in my pocket Moleskine planner.
Have I mentioned I love it?
Posted by: Anthony B. at August 22, 2008 01:46 PM
Anthony,
Very cool.
It is amazing how rewarding having a great tool can be - especially if it helps you keep your head clear!
thanks,
Michael
Posted by: Michael at August 22, 2008 03:09 PM
Hi. Sorry for possible typos and grammar errors; I'm not a native English speaker.
I think it would be great if, somehow, you could have a single, universal inbox. You'd have just one collection point for all your stuff, which would then be easy to process in a timely manner. Sadly, this doesn't seem possible, if only because of the extreme diversity of things that need collecting. Some are physical, some are electronic; some belong to the office, some to home, and some more pop up while travelling. Therefore, you can't avoid keeping multiple inboxes. Still, it seems to me that it is important to keep the fewest collection points that you possibly can. If not, the system might degrade and become untrustworthy, because you'd then have to remember (that is, keep in your head) which inboxes you're handling, and worry about overlooking one or more at processing time.
One example: I handle personal email through a Gmail account, which I might want to check from home or when I'm away, either by visiting the Gmail website or from the email software on my laptop or even through a portable email client I keep on a USB drive. Therefore, it makes sense to enable IMAP access to the mail account, because it ensures my mail boxes (which include not just "In" but also "Waiting for", "Someday/maybe", and "Reference") are identical no matter how or from where I check them. In other words, what could possibly be multiple, hopelessly non-synchronized in- and outboxes, are in practice one and the same.
Perhaps this is helpful to someone else.
Posted by: Christian Hess at August 24, 2008 10:14 AM
I have a big drawer beside me which I use as an inbox. I don't get it to ZERO enough, but when I close that drawer, all those bothersome scraps of paper don't bother me. Granted, I have a bit of a panic attack when I open the drawer. For the most part, I deal with things as they crop up, but I have lots of ideas that just persistently orbit my head, so having somewhere I can put them and deal with them when I want to is a blessing.
Try it. Put your inbox into a drawer...
Posted by: Martin at August 25, 2008 03:26 AM
Martin,
Hmmm..
I'm not so sure I would really endorse that strategy for hiding the in-box ;-) In my experience, its best for the inbox to be pretty close and visible so that I can't help but notice whenever anythings not been processed.
It sounds like you may be using this drawer JUST for the "ideas that persistently orbit in your head," so you can "deal with them when you want to." So maybe your hidden inbox is sort of like my someday maybe list??
Posted by: Michael Dolan at August 25, 2008 07:15 PM
I know this is a late addition but I have to second Michael's endorsement for a visible in-box. Just recently I let "in" get a little overflowed at home because of other commitments. Finally this morning, after what David calls in his seminars, "The Scuzz Factor" was just too high. So I picked up the box, tossed into my portable folder and brought it with me to work where I finally processed it. Had the box been out of sight, I never would have had that moment and who knows how long I would have let it go without that visual cue?
Posted by: Kenny S. at September 24, 2008 09:36 AM
