Jason M. Hanley :: Custom Software Developer

It surprises me every day how much trouble people seem to have dealing with email. David Allen (the GTD expert) has his own opinion about it in his latest Food For Thought column:

“…information overload isn’t the problem. If it was, you’d walk into a library and die. The first time you connected to the Web, you’d blow up, and merely browsing a newspaper would make you a nervous wreck.”

I receive just over 100 emails per day, but it takes me very little time to process and respond to them. The first level of processing is the inbox itself. I have 3 different ones - Business, Personal and Bulk. The Bulk inbox is where all of my low priority newsletters, account information, and status updates go to, and only needs to be checked once a day. This cuts out about 30 messages, half of which are spam.

My Business and Personal accounts are both hosted on Gmail. This gives me access anywhere, as well as excellent SPAM filtering that reduces my email to process by another 40 messages. That only leaves 30 messages a day I even have to look at.

At this level, I ask myself similar questions to the ones David spells out in his column:

“Is it actionable? If not, is it trash, is it to be stored for later action, or is it reference? If it is actionable, what’s the next action? And what outcome, if any, should I now be committed to?”

Of the 30 emails left for me to process manually, only about half of them actually require a response. The rest go to the Archive folder in Gmail and leave my inbox empty and waiting for the next message to process.

1. Do intense research and planning and come up with a plan that is so good, it simply cannot fail.
2. Put 110% of your effort and ability into carrying out the planned actions.
3. Fail miserably.
4. Evaluate, learn, re-tool and re-focus.
5. Fail slightly less miserably the next time.
6. Go to step 4 and keep repeating until you succeed!

Here’s a handy tip for you. Most people have groups of sites that they commonly access. When I boot up, the first thing I usually do is open up Firefox, and load my Google Calendar, two Gmail accounts, and check the weather for the next few days.

You can actually do this in one step. First, create a new folder on your toolbar (Right click, “New Folder…”). Then, add your startup items to it. Now, after loading Firefox, simply right click the folder on the toolbar and select the first option “Open in tabs.”

Now if you’re a real productivity chaser like me, you might think you’re really smart and try to add that folder to your automatic startup page (found under Tools, Options, Home Page). Sadly, that has the unfortunate effect of opening all of those folders every time you press then Home button, which can be really annoying. So I recommend the right click and open tabs method.

Studies by the World Health Organization indicate that more than 1 billion (over 15%) of world’s 6.5 billion people are overweight. In contrast, about 600 million people (less than 9%) are considered to be undernourished.

I’ve noticed for some time that the “norm” for body fat and waist size has been steadily increasing. It was especially evident when I was living in the southern United States and then traveled to eastern Europe. The difference in average weight was astounding.

The WHO says, “Increased consumption of more energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods with high levels of sugar and saturated fats, combined with reduced physical activity, have led to obesity rates that have risen three-fold or more since 1980 in some areas of North America, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, Australasia and China.”

Prof. Kate Steinbeck, from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital concludes with a scary supposition: “The children in this generation may be the first in history to die before their parents because of health problems related to weight.”

If you’re interested in eating healthier, I highly recommend the Nutrition Action Healthletter, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a pretty organized person. I always have a lot on my plate, and I do a pretty good job of working my way through it. That said, there’s always room for improvement. So naturally, when I heard about the book, “Getting Things Done”, by David Allen, I wanted to learn more. After reading the Wikipedia article on it, I decided I needed to get the book, and ordered it from Amazon.

So far I’ve read the first two chapters, and I’ve already come across several really good ideas to improve the current way I get things done. David advocates a 5-step process:

1. Collect “stuff” that may require action
2. Process what specific actions need to be done
3. Organize the actions into groups and projects
4. Review to decide which actions we will do and when
5. Do the actions!

He points out that one key problem with how a lot of people try to organize themselves is that they only start making lists when things are already out of control. Then they will often try to do all of the steps at once. Another key point is the collection process. Some people try to keep everything they have to do in their head.

David makes a point that short-term memory is actually a really bad place to store to-do items since you rarely remember things in the correct context to actually do them. For example, when do you remember that your flashlight needs need batteries? When you need to use it and try to switch it on! Not when you’re in the store at the battery aisle.

This book seems to be full of great time management advice. I’m looking forward to finishing it and I’ll probably write some more postings about the material as I get further into the book.