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How to combine PROCESSING and DOING?
Marvin | Mar 12 2006
Hi, my work is most of the time at computer, and my InBox keeps receiving numerous e-mails as I am doing anything else. Many items from the InBox do require immediate attention and many are those 2-minutes stuff. But if I look at the new messages as they arrive, I end up on doing only that. On the other had, if I concentrane on doing smth from my next actions, InBox is getting bigger and bigger. And while many messages are important right now, many aren't and can wait. What is your experience? Thanks! 9 Comments
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 A few thoughts: I think...Submitted by andyc on March 12, 2006 - 5:57am.
A few thoughts: I think the problem here is one of setting realistic expectations - and being realistic about what "urgent" means. I try to set the expectation that I'll respond to e-mails in 4 hours - this is the same as the SLA for formal helpdesk requests to our department, so I'm certainly not going to beat that. And I often will make sure it's up to 3h50 before I actually reply (it wouldn't be the first time I've written five e-mails, gone to two hours of meetings, and then came back and hit "Send" on them all). If you want a faster response than that, don't send me an e-mail. I also make a big thing of "Bad Planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part". Usually on the way to fixing the emergency, I find out how long the knew they needed this, and that if they'd asked for it yesterday it wouldn't have been a problem to do it in time. It does slow down the emergencies. Finally, If it's really coming in that fast, try moving the current inbox to @Processing, process that lot, and then go and do something else for an hour. Later, rinse, repeat. » POSTED IN:
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