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    Happiness is…an Empty In-box

    February 21st, 2008 by Stephen

    Posted in Digital Apps, GTD, Workflow |

    If you're new here, Welcome! To learn more about what this site is all about click here [link].

    Connect with Stephen at LinkedIn - Click hereProductivity Tools and DIY Calendars - Click hereI am a small business Conversation Consultant and public speaker that uses the power of the internet to leverage your success. Productivity in Context is a web magazine focused on Productivity and tools for organizing. Make this your headquarters for improving your life and work through increased mindfulness, education, and workflow practices.

    Subscribe by E-mail for updates on: Productivity methods, Lifestyle innovation, and the collaborative design of the next-generation personal knowledge management system.

    Click Here for an overview of the content. Please take a look at our sponsors. (Hosting isn't free...)
    Please contact me via e-mail: stephen @ hdbizblog dot com

    Thanks for visiting!

    You've got mail!I have been out of town quite a bit over the last 9 days, training for a new role as a recruiter/trainer for a marketing company, and my e-mail In-boxes have been neglected. That is to say, I handled the urgent and important items, but filed the rest away.

    I spent two hours this morning getting caught up.

    Lesson learned: do not let your In-boxes pile up! Just in time comes an e-mail post from Nick at Put Things Off (but that’s what I was doing!) about how to reach e-mail heaven. I have been using my Thunderbird client to handle this, but with being on the road so much, I may have to get back to a straight Gmail system:

    The Inbox Heaven Rules

    These rules are a combination of my own experience using and refining Inbox Heaven, with inspiration from Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero presentation, which was in turn sparked off by David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

    I’d also like to acknowledge that I’m not the first person to suggest using a Gmail account as your only Inbox — I’m just the first to put all the steps you need on one page, add a picture of a gremlin, and glue it all together with some concrete rules to keep you on track.

    The 5 Rules

    Rule 1) Delete as much as you can. If in doubt, delete it.
    Rule 2) If it needs action within two weeks, star and archive it.
    Rule 3) Archive anything else that you’ll need after two weeks.
    Rule 4) Twice a day, take action on all your starred items.
    Rule 5) Delete, archive, or star-and-archive every email as it comes in.

    Rumor from LGMy new phone can access e-mail from Gmail very easily, but I have other accounts that I use, and will have to add this to my Project list for next week. Check it out, and let me know if you already do this!

    Note: For those of you who say, “But Gmail doesn’t have folders! I need my folders!!” Nick has this for a reply:

    8. Use your labels like folders. When you do label an email, use a hierarchical structure. The way I use labels is to imagine them as folders, separated by a hyphen. For example, I use the initials “PTO” for important Put Things Off email, then have a list of “subfolders” separated by a hyphen. For example, I currently have “PTO-advertisers”, “PTO-book”, and “PTO-guestposts” amongst my labels.

    I have the same for other areas — each one gets an initial for the project and a subfolder separated by a hyphen. Try it — it makes your labels really easy to scan.

    Now why didn’t I think of that? Thanks Nick.

    BTW: Does anyone have any advice re: using shared office space? E-mail me about the good, bad, and ugly - stephen [at] hdbizblog [dot] com.

    If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6dryt6. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen


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    4 Responses

    1. Words Within Says:

      Stephen,

      Have you checked out GTDInbox? It’s a wicked FF extension that adds GTD capabilities to your Gmail inbox. Works very well and the developer is very receptive!

      GTDInbox

    2. Christine OKelly Says:

      Oh man Stephen! You are so right! Happiness would be an empty inbox - not at the expense of email coming in, but because I could figure out a way to handle everything that came in every day.

      I dare not get a phone like yours… I had a Blackberry once… now I know why they call it a Crackberry!

    3. Autoversicherung Says:

      Hey, i find this comments very interested. Thanks and Regards from Germany

    4. Stephen Says:

      >Words Within- I do have that app installed, but I used to have 2 gmail accounts and did not know how to integrate them. Nick’s article is a big help, and I will be implementing it soon.

      >Christine- I intentionally picked a phone that had decent e-mail capabilities and was compatible with Gmail, BUT did not have a lot of other bells and whistles. The last thing I need is another layer of distractions. It is supposed to be a tool, not a toy!

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