Happy Canada Day, y’all! It’s a workday for me, but I’ll be off on Friday for the 4th (and specifically, I’ll be off camping. Psyched.)
So, a bit more on combating the WorkFromHome Vaccuum.
Step 4: Tackle email. After that iced soy chai on Sunday, I started going through my email, having finally decided to read the oft-bookmarked Inbox Zero posts on 43 Folders. First, I moved all the messages from before June 1st into a new folder. Then I sat shocked at the 198 messages just from June. Starting at the bottom, I went through them one by one. Most needed filing. Many needed to be deleted. A good bunch needed my attention. After an hour, I’d whittled it down to 98 messages, and I needed to call it a day. It’s important to note, though, that just doing that added to my feeling of relief. I started to feel far more on top of things, and just as important, I started to feel like I was accomplishing real work.
Yesterday I went through the remaining messages in my work inbox, and although I’d be kidding myself to think that means I’m caught up, I do feel poised to get real work done. The power of that feeling should not be underestimated.
I discovered I don’t need my inbox to be empty. Like David Pogue, who wrote about this last week, I use my inbox as a to-do list, and it works for me. What I need to improve on is moving stuff out of there when it doesn’t need my attention. And you know what? After I finished going through the old messages, I had an easy time quickly processing new ones. I answered those I could reply to quickly, filed those I needed to archive, deleted those I didn’t need, and left alone the ones that need more involved attention. So now there are 51 emails in my work inbox, and I’m okay with that.
And so yesterday I went back to my in-laws’ house and spread out and got some work done. Thank. the. gods.
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Comments (6)
Donna added these pithy words on Jul 01 08 at 2:17 pmMy e-mail is desperately in need of some Inbox Zero action. And I love this photo of you!
matt added these pithy words on Jul 01 08 at 4:41 pmOk. I’ve just spent most of the last hour watching/listening to the Inbox Zero video. Crap. I may have lost an hour, but I do think I may have just saved about fourteen hours a week. Thanks!
Yarn Thing added these pithy words on Jul 01 08 at 4:54 pmI am happy for you dear! I know how overwhelming it all can be. I to often will fall into the vacuum mode too!
xoxox
Marly
Alison added these pithy words on Jul 02 08 at 10:01 amI’ve always tried to keep all my inboxes (work and personal) whittled down to just what needs to be handled. I do find though, that even with this I sometimes have to take a moment and get rid of things that have been sitting there for way too long and are clearly not going to be handled (at least anytime soon). ;)
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