My line of work (and a lot of my hobbies) has me often times helping people with their technology. At one time or another, it never fails, I hear "don't look Brooke, I'm embarrassed" or "I know it's bad but I am so busy" and sometimes it's just a look of shame that they give me when I see their email inboxes.
I know, I am a crazy, organization freak, OCD, calendar/to-do list driven person. For me, a full inbox (and I mean an inbox with more than 20-25 emails) is visual clutter, and any kind of clutter clouds my mind and in-turn is counter productive. This is for me....I don't judge. I say you have to do what works for you and for those that ask for advice I usually tell them how I manage my email and move on to our task at hand.
Today I ran across a blog post about Simple Living from zenhabits.net. The author suggests 10 strategies for simplfying your life and #8 really spoke to me as an organization strategy that I could pass on to my collegues, teachers, and friends as a way to tackle their email inbox that has "runnith over" and needs some attention.
And remember - if it doesn't bother you then it doesn't bother me ;) I am not posting this in hopes for "someone" to get the hint or to send a subliminal message to anyone. Only here to help.
I know, I am a crazy, organization freak, OCD, calendar/to-do list driven person. For me, a full inbox (and I mean an inbox with more than 20-25 emails) is visual clutter, and any kind of clutter clouds my mind and in-turn is counter productive. This is for me....I don't judge. I say you have to do what works for you and for those that ask for advice I usually tell them how I manage my email and move on to our task at hand.
Today I ran across a blog post about Simple Living from zenhabits.net. The author suggests 10 strategies for simplfying your life and #8 really spoke to me as an organization strategy that I could pass on to my collegues, teachers, and friends as a way to tackle their email inbox that has "runnith over" and needs some attention.
8. Clear out your email inbox. This has the same psychological effect as a clear desk. Is your email inbox always full of read and unread messages? That’s because you’re delaying decisions on your emails. If you have 50, let’s say, or fewer emails in your inbox, you can process them all today. If you have hundreds, you should put them in a temporary folder and get to them one chunk at a time (do 20 per day or something). Here’s how you process your inbox to empty — including emails already in your inbox, and all future incoming emails: 1) process them top to bottom, one at a time, deciding and disposing of each one immediately. 2) Your choices are to delete, archive, respond immediately (and archive or delete), forward (and archive or delete), or mark it with a star (or something like that) and note it on your to-do list to respond to later (and archive). 3) Process each email like that until the inbox is empty. 4) Each time you check your email, process to empty. Ahh, an empty inbox!
And remember - if it doesn't bother you then it doesn't bother me ;) I am not posting this in hopes for "someone" to get the hint or to send a subliminal message to anyone. Only here to help.
No comments:
Post a Comment