I had heard stories of people (mostly rumours and legends) who had zero emails in their inboxes. Having immediately speculated that these folks must not be very busy, I was surprised to learn that in several cases they were just as busy as I was. Now my inbox situation wasn't for lack of trying, I just kept getting "stuck". I would start into my inbox to clear things up and then I'd come to an email that required some thought or a detailed response, and by the time I'd dealt with that email, I'd be onto other work and out of "cleanup mode". Manfred gave me real insight into deleting emails rapidly, mostly it was "how" he spoke of email. From references to "email bankruptcy" (deleting all your emails and sending your entire contact list a simple message stating that if they were expecting anything from you, they should let you know) to his sage advice that "The first and most workmanlike filter in your email processing scheme must involve very quickly deciding whether a given message can be deleted or archived immediately upon receipt."In Processing your inbox Manfred highlights 5 possibilities for every email in your inbox.
- delete it
- archive it
- defer it for later response
- generate an action from it
- respond to it immediately (if it—literally—will take less than 2 minutes or is so Earth-shattering that it just can’t wait)"
You may recognize the pattern from Getting Things Done the organizing strategy developed by David Allen. If you practice GTD, you will find that Manfred supplements the system with some of the necessary energy and perspective for following through on processing.
If you are going to check out any of Manfred's Inbox Zero content, be sure to watch the video.
Thanks for the help Manfred!
Greg.
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