#inbox-zero

[zzkt]

Why time management is ruining our lives

The allure of the doctrine of time management is that, one day, everything might finally be under control. Yet work in the modern economy is notable for its limitlessness. And if the stream of incoming emails is endless, Inbox Zero can never bring liberation: you’re still Sisyphus, rolling his boulder up that hill for all eternity – you’re just rolling it slightly faster. Two years after his Google talk, Mann released a rambling and slightly manic online video in which he announced that he had signed a contract for an Inbox Zero book. But his career as a productivity guru had begun to stir an inner conflict. “I started making pretty good money from it” – from speaking and consulting – “but I also started to feel terrible,” he told me earlier this year. “This topic of productivity induces the worst kind of procrastination, because it feels like you’re doing work, but I was producing stuff that had the express purpose of saying to people, ‘Look, come and see how to do your work, rather than doing your work!’” The book missed its publication date. Fans started asking questions. Then, after two more years, Mann published a self-lacerating essay in which he abruptly announced that he was jettisoning the project. It was the 3,000-word howl of a man who had suddenly grasped the irony of missing morning after morning with his three-year-old daughter because he was “typing bullshit that I hoped would please my book editor” about how to use time well. He was guilty, he declared, of “abandoning [my] priorities to write about priorities … I’ve unintentionally ignored my own counsel to never let your hard work fuck up the good things.” He hinted that he might write a different kind of book instead – a book about stuff that really mattered – but it never appeared. “I’m mostly out of the productivity racket these days,” Mann told me. “If you’re just using efficiency to jam more and more stuff into your day … well, how would you ever know that that’s working?”

via https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives?CMP=fb_gu

[kivio]

Unroll.me - czyli jak posprzątać pocztę na dobre

Znalazłem ostatnio usługę która podbiła moje serce. Ale zacznijmy od początku - od dłuższego już czasu walczę ze spamem i wiadomościami na poczcie. Opowiem wam dziś historię - zaczyna się ona od 4 skrzynek pocztowych od różnych dostawców z mnóstwem newsletterów i innych takich rzeczy, gdzie dziennie pojawiało się sumarycznie po 100 parę maili. Na czym kończy się ta historia - na średnio 4 mailach dziennie, z czego jeden to newsletter który lubię czytać, 2 wiadomości przeciętnie to sytuacje gdzie ktoś naprawdę coś do mnie napisał. No i ten jeden mail o którym jest cały ten wpis.

Przyjrzyjmy się temu wszystkiemu z bliska.

Cała historia zaczęła się pewnie z pół roku temu. Stwierdziłem wtedy, że mail [email protected] ciężko jest komuś podyktować, poza tym pod jego utrzymanie opłacam cały hosting który chyba nie do końca jest mi potrzebny. 

Postanowiłem więc założyć sobie jakąś pocztę typu marcin.karkocha@<xyz>.com (a dokładniej outlook.com - piszcie jak macie jakieś pomysły o czym chcielibyście usłyszeć na blogu). Aby nie likwidować konta [email protected] stwierdziłem, że połączę je z nową pocztą w związku z tym w ramach domeny za grosze wykupiłem dożywotnie przekierowanie poczty na skrzynkę w Microsoftcie. To samo ustawiłem sobie z drugą skrzynką do której podpiętych mam mnóstwo aliasów i generalnie był tam niezły śmietnik. Ostatnią skrzynkę - Googlową - która jest wymagana do pewnych operacji oczyściłem po prostu ze wszystkich maili i newsletterów przepisując ich ustawienia na inne konto pocztowe. (Ciekawostka - na poczcie Google dostałem w ciągu ostatnich 3 miesięcy 2 maile, jeden o zakupie aplikacji na androida i drugi o aktualizacji regulaminu). 

Po połączeniu tego całego bałaganu do jednej aplikacji jaką jest outlook.com przeraził mnie fakt, że teraz mam blisko 150 maili nieodebranych dziennie. Wcześniej tego aż tak nie zauważałem bo po podzieleniu na 4 skrzynki było tego maksymalnie (na tej najbardziej spamowej) po 60 na dzień. Wydaje się dużo - dla mnie było to kilka minut na zaznaczenie nie interesujących i usunięcie. 

Zacząłem więc walkę ze spamem. Wyrejestrowałem się ze wszystkiego czego nie chciałem otrzymywać na pocztę. Wszystko to z czego nie mogłem się wypisać, a nie chciałem tego czytać po blokowałem za pomocą filtrów. W ten sposób pozbyłem się np. maili reklamowych wysyłanych przez o2.pl - średnio 10 dziennie. 

Nadal pozostały jednak wiadomości które czasami czytam, albo w których interesuje mnie tytuł. Ze względu na niego np. niektóre czytam. Jako przykład mogę podać tu serwis LinkedIn który wysyła mi maile z wiadomościami w grupach. Większość tych maili mnie nie interesuje ale czasami pojawia się coś co jednak sprawia, że chcę o tym poczytać. Podobnie mam z ofertami na jedzenie z Groupona. Z reguł wywalam je do śmieci, ale od czasu do czasu wybieramy się jednak z żoną na miasto i wtedy gdy nie mamy pomysłu gdzie iść po prostu wybieramy najatrakcyjniejszy Groupon. 

Postanowiłem więc poszukać sposobu na uporządkowanie tych wiadomości. Po kilkunastominutowym przeczesywaniu internetu trafiłem na serwis Unroll.me i zakochałem się. 

Unroll.me po pierwsze pomaga w wyrejestrowaniu się ze zbędnych newsletterów i podpowiada Ci które strony to właśnie tego typu usługi. Po drugie pozwala z tych które chcesz otrzymywać zrobić tzw. Rollup. Mail ten będzie do ciebie wysyłany z wybraną częstotliwością. Ja dostaje dzienny w którego skład wchodzi od 6 do 18 maili. Dzięki temu zamiast 6 do 18 powiadomień o nowej poczcie dostaje jedno. Mail pojawia się codziennie o 6:00 więc nawet nie jestem tego świadom. Pozostałe powiadomienia na poczcie mam włączone bo wiem, że o reszcie wiadomości na pewno chciałbym usłyszeć. 

Usługą prosta a jednocześnie piękna. Polecam wszystkim którzy dążą do utrzymania porządku w skrzynce. 

PS. Jest jedna mała wada, usługa nie działa aktualnie z żadnym polskim dostawcą poczty i pewnie szybko nie zacznie. Ale zawsze możesz podpiąć swoje maile do gmaila czy outlooka i w ten sposób korzystać z tego serwisu. Ma to jeszcze jedną zaletę gdyż poczty te mają moim okiem więcej funkcjonalności i przejrzystszy interfejs. 

[maxzografos-blog]

Email: 3 Steps to Greater Productivity

There are enough things in our day that seemingly try their best to drive us nuts. Email is one of them. What can we do about it?

Let's face it. Email technology is old. It predates the Internet as we know it, and was designed to automate traditional mail and faxes.

Email technology is like an aging highway. Built decades ago; it is now congested as it struggles to meet today's bursting traffic.

Hands up if you use email as a task manager

You're not the only one. The problem is that email has been relegated to a basket for trivial rubbish like Facebook notifications, newsletters, offers and spam. We end up spending hours on email without even realizing it.

Our productivity suffers death by a thousand cuts every single day. We need to do something about it.

A method called inbox-zero is designed to alleviate some of that pain. Its underlying premise is based on David Allen's GTD (Get Things Done) philosophy.

Implementing a full-blown GTD workflow was always seen as somewhat onerous and not for everyone. So over the years, various derivative methods sprung out of GTD, one of which is inbox-zero. It was articulated and popularized by Merlin Mann, in his efforts to deal with his ADD diagnosis (Attention Deficit Disorder).

While not as exhaustive as GTD, the inbox-zero method can produce tangible results without unreasonable investments upfront.

The self-evident goal is to have zero emails in our inbox. Whenever a message arrives we have to do something about it there and then, rather than let it linger. This means we only look at our emails when we are ready to work on them.

Here is how it works:

Delete: Upon reading an email, 90% of the times all you need to do is delete or archive it. Don't let newsletters and notifications et cetera stay in your inbox. Get rid of them. Stop hoarding.

Respond: If that email requires a response, then don't leave it for later. The time for acting on it is now. After all, this is the time of day you consciously chose to process your emails. So respond now. And then delete / archive it.

File: If you are certain you will need this information in the future, then file in appropriately named folders. "To Read", "To Buy", "To Watch", et cetera for example.

Here is what you gain by doing it the inbox-zero way: ​

Less email checking, better focus If you program yourself to check your emails at the same time you action them, then by definition that means no emails while in bed, or while in a meeting, while playing with your kids or watching a movie. You decide and cordon-off specific time-slots in the day (hopefully not more than a few) when you process (not merely check) your emails.

Easier to track information Without a sea of emails to sort through, you find things quicker. Less frustration, less energy expended, significant time savings.​

Out of sight, out of mind I've written about the benefits of having as little possessions as possible. Our mind clears up, creating space for fresh ideas and opportunities. Same applies to our electronic life. Getting rid of processed email, means our virtual "office" is now clean. The visual and mental burden associated with unruly inboxes is now lifted.

As of this week, my inbox has remained empty most of the time. Now—clearly—I'm not the most popular online diva out there, and don't receive thousands of emails. Still, I do get my fair share of incoming messages I have to sort through. Achieving inbox-zero feels like an accomplishment each time.

Here's how an empty Mac inbox looks like:

I've created a smart mailbox to store my unread emails. When something comes up, I need to action it when I check it.​ Everything else gets archived. Read how to setup a smart mailbox.

And on the left is my iPhone inbox.

I'm using Mailbox, a promising new app (from the creators of Orchestra) that helps automate the aforementioned three steps to inbox-zero. It all happens via intuitive gestures.

Happy emailing!

[magnemg]

How to deal with an overwhelming amount of tasks (in GTD and in life)

Posted on the GTD Facebook page:

"I have written down every work and personal task I need to do, including converting emails to action items and now I have 580 work tasks, 346 personal tasks, 266 tasks for my assistant and 117 honey-dos for my husband! I have them organized by project and date, but am feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it all! Any advice? Thanks so much for your work. Answer from David Allen: Well, you have as many commitments as you have, and unless you want eternal subliminal stress, you need to get them objectively out of your head and reviewable. As you’ve discovered, your next task to get more stress-free is to determine which ones are really “someday” vs. which ones need to be on the front shelf. Essentially, everything that you’re not doing at any moment is “someday,” but the psyche feels much better when you have made some distinctions between the active ones that you really want/need to get done within a reasonable time vs. those that can wait. Ultimately you’ll have to decide what kind of overview/map you need and want to see, to feel OK about what you’re doing. So there’s no right or wrong answer about any of this—only what’s most workable for you.

I've had this exact same problem, and the solution isn't accepting that the weight of the world is on your shoulders.

Rather, the solution is: To shrug.

Bear with me..

The problem you're facing is:

Important tasks drown among unimportant ones. Same goes for urgent/not urgent tasks. You're not able to get a proper and manageable overview over what you need to do.  

"Long lists don't get done." It's a guilt trip. You feel bad about yourself when you're not able to make the list become noticeably smaller.   

GTD doesn't really give any good advice on "what tasks NOT to write down". The only mention in GTD I've found is: ".. if you're like most people, having some type of self-regulating mechanism will help you become more aware of what you want to keep and what you should just get rid of" [regarding the read/review list] (p148). What if you don't have that self-regulating mechanism? How do you obtain it, before the system overflows?

The underlying cause is probably:

You're a creative person. This also plays out in coming up with stuff that you could potentially do. (GTD actually encourages you to be creative when writing your lists, often giving you simply too much noise.)  

You start with "Yes". And you're overly optimistic about your own capabilities, and how much time or effort tasks actually require. You're ambitious. You want to do more than you're able to get done (appetite > ability).  

You're afraid of missing out on something, so you write everything down, to not risk forgetting something. This is loss aversion at it's finest.

I've found the following principles work as a solution:  

Forgetting and "missing out" can be a blessing.

Forgetting is actually the best way "to get something completely off your mind" (which you might recognize is the stated purpose behind GTD). Writing stuff on a list will only get it off your mind until the next time you look at that list. If you look at the list often, then that task will consume your attention more often (and give you a guilt-trip too). Attention is your scarcest resource. Before you wrote everything down, you were perfectly able to forget all the less important tasks, or someday/maybes, and that didn't cause you any pain, did it? Being able to forget stuff makes you able to give your full attention on the stuff that is really important. 

The world won't end if you miss out on doing certain tasks every now and then. Don't succumb to the worry and Fear Of Missing Out. Forgetting the mundane, will help you taste life more (and not living it through your lists). Accept the fact that you will be missing out possible-things-to-do all the time; on the web, in relationships, and in life in general. No matter what you do, or how much you do, there's always an abundance of things you could potentially also do, that you won't be able to. It's actually a good thing that you can't do everything, because that forces you to choose what you value. That will set you apart. Go on a todo-diet. See how many things you could get away with not doing, and experience the fact that life goes on, pretty much as normal, even still. People will ask you a second time if you've forgotten their request, and they won't be mad if you tell them they have to wait. It's totally OK to not "jump onto" a email/request/task the minute you see it, or to be constantly "hovering" over your inbox. People really don't expect you to do it immediately (in case they did, they would/should have texted or called you). And the next time life hands you that "thing you should do something about", or you experience "that problem you should fix" life will gently remind you, automatically.

"Start with No" / "Don't write it down".

Make actions work hard to get on your next action list. Make each action prove itself and show that it's a survivor. Make the initial response "not now" instead of "yes, lets write it down". (thank you 37signals). This is opposed to David Allens advice of writing everything down: "you need to get them objectively out of your head and reviewable". If the action keeps coming back (in your mind, or from others), then it's time to consider it. If you want to do it (in the light of all the other next actions you have, and while realizing that it will come at the expense of the others), then write it down. If someone requests you for something they're motivated to get from you, ask them to email you about it, instead of writing it down yourself at first. If they want it, it's their responsibility to go get it. If they forget (or don't bother) to to email you about it (or ask you again for it), then it's probably not that important to them. Viola, you just relieved yourself of remembering / tracking it. Being able to forget it made you able to focus on the stuff that was really important.

You just won't be able to do it all!

I find this to be unsound advice from David Allen: "you have as many commitments as you have".

Most of the stuff you deem you "need to do", you really don't. "Pleasing everyone, all of the time, is a surefire way to failure" someone once said. I'd extend this to pleasing your own apetite / ambition / wants all of the time. When your GTD-system inevitably crashes, or you realize that tasks have been lying on your next action list for weeks/months, you realize that it's really not a task you "need to do". Trash it, or put it into "someday/maybe" (then trash it from that list again if it's been there for several months).  

Break stuff into smaller lists.

I go against GTD's advice, and use a daily todo-list. I try to filter my next-action list in the morning, and make a smaller list of stuff I decide to do "Today". The tasks on that list are grouped by context, and with a lot of whitespace between the contexts (so the contexts look like separate sub-lists). There, a much more manageable list. If tasks carry over to the next day, I just use the same "Today" list as the day before (I just update it during my daily review of the next actions list).  The reason for this today-list is in having decided on an agenda for the day, and to:  Avoid drowning your important/urgent tasks in between the rest. Such a today-list is against the advice of GTD, but is actually in line with what David Allen stated above:

"[it] feels much better when you have made some distinctions between the active ones that you really want/need to get done within a reasonable time vs. those that can wait."

The key is realizing: You won't be able to glance at a list of 20+ tasks and quickly know what to do next!  

Trust your intuition more than your lists.

Your brain is the best filter in the world. I've often looked for "the answer" somewhere in my lists. It's funny how we look for someone or something (even our own lists/systems) to give us the answer. Instead of exerting the (painful, strenuous) effort of thinking ourselves.  When I realize I'm doing this, it's probably because I'm really low on energy, and default to less cognitive demanding tasks (like moving stuff up and down in my lists). Take a good break, and get something to eat. Sadly, but truly: There is no substitute for thinking yourself. Usually, "the answer" to what you should be doing right now, you somehow already know. It's usually what makes you feel accomplished / not accomplished at the end of the day. Use your lists only as a check, not as a "blueprint answer". Don't work "in" the list (sorting, prioritizing etc.). Let your intuition give you the answer instead. What I'm trying to do these days:

1. Look over the calendar and the list, for a rough overview. 2. Put the list away, take a break and contemplate what I really want to do, and how I should start it. 3. Without looking back on the list: Start working on a task that would make me feel accomplished (It's often an urgent and important task, or an important but not urgent task. Thank you 7habits). If it's hard to determine what the most important task is; just pick one. Better to get started than caught in analysis paralysis (yet again). 4. Later: Go back to the list, and check that I didn't forget anything. Let the list only serve as a check that you didn't forget anything important.  

Working on GTD or actually getting things done?

If you're spending a lot of time on managing your system/tasks, and not on getting things done, then you're doing it wrong. Set aside some time to reflect on how you could reduce your system to a minimum. System overhead is wasteful expenditure of attention. An optimal system, should get out of your way and get you going in the overall right direction, as fast as possible. You can course-correct underway.

So, when you're yet again overwhelmed with tasks, and it feels like the weight of the world is back on your shoulders: Shrug. Update: Here are some practical tips on what types of things to avoid keeping track of in GTD: 5 things to keep out of OmniFocus.