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Fresh Start: The Email DMZ
Merlin Mann | Jan 4 2006
Like a lot of the best fresh starts, this one's a total psych-out; also, like most of the best ones, you won't believe how well it works until you actually try it for yourself.
Is this the email equivalent of covering your ears and singing loudly? Not really. You still need to deal with all the emails in your DMZ folder (personally I'd recommended "archiving" anything older than 21 days), but, most importantly, you're drawing a line in the sand. You're saying "Okay, starting this minute I quit letting 'being behind' stop me from making good decisions now and going forward." Hence the "fresh start." Get it? Tomorrow morning you arrive to a spanking fresh inbox and the chance to start anew. Of course, using your fresh start to develop an actual new habit is entirely optional, but it's certainly more reachable than ever now, right? Right. Basically, this works at accomplishing the one thing you need more than anything else right now: to stop digging. Think about it: how much stuff in your life has gotten unmanageable simply because you decided at some point that you were too behind to ever make a difference? More than anything you need a way to recover these projects from the brink -- to find the handle that lets you stop making it worse and start seeing a way back toward daylight. (On another day, I'll tell you my super-secret way of paring down the biggest DMZ folder to empty in 15 minutes.) 56 Comments
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jajajaja, gOd tutorial!!!!
... by pablotossi (not verified)
Nice idea. Now if... by kyte (not verified)
"Tomorrow morning you arrive to... by Jeff Blaine (not verified)
My way of cleaning up... by Kara (not verified)
My email trick:
When the task... by Mary (not verified)
I think I'm possibly the... by Phil (not verified)
I wish I could apply... by Jason J. Thomas (not verified)
OMG, we need the super-secret... by Eric Mueller (not verified)
Agree--reveal super secret trick please!
My... by Sonia Simone (not verified)
About MerlinBio Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s best known for being the guy who created the website you’re reading right now. He lives in San Francisco, does lots of public speaking, and helps make cool things like You Look Nice Today, Back to Work, and Kung Fu Grippe. Also? He’s writing this book, he lives with this face, he suffers from this hair, he answers these questions, and he’s had this life. So far. Merlin’s favorite thing he’s written in the past few years is an essay entitled, “Cranking.” |
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