Passion * Technology * Ruthless Competence

Thursday, August 19, 2004

The Incredible Shrinking Inbox

My inbox is getting to be reasonable again. After two weeks on the road, it got up over 300 messages even though I cleaned it out before I left. Now, it's back down to 45 messages. I already use rules to break out messages that come to various mailing lists, that come to our team alias, or ones that I'm cc'ed on. I've realized that everything that comes into my inbox falls into one of three categories: shit I need to know, shit I need to do, and shit I don't need. I'm trying to be really diligent getting all these things out of my inbox. Shit I need to do gets moved to the task list. Shit I need to know gets moved into some other folder - usually by category though I have Lookout if I need to search for it. Shit I don't need gets deleted. Of course, once I'm done with my inbox, I've still got to tackle those nearly 400 messages in my cc, team and not to me folders. I'm hoping this will help me stay better organized - something I manager tells me that I need to work on (along with focusing on what's important and improving my diplomacy). One thing that taking this job has taught me, you can always get more email, whether you want it or not!

Posted By Harry Pierson at 10:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Friday, August 20, 2004 10:12:10 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Sounds like that old time management technique: TRAF.

Toss - As in throw it away
Refer - Give it to someone else
Act - Act on it
File - Put it somewhere for future reference

Wouldn't it be cool to have Outlook setup that way? Just two folders. (The first two involve getting rid of the message.)
Friday, August 20, 2004 9:04:51 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Yes, it's very much like that (only difference - I group R & A together as shit to do). Peter, w/ you coming to MSFT maybe we figure out how to set Outlook up that way! You think you get a lot of email now...
DevHawk
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