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Anyone else having problems replying to emails?
Laura M. | Oct 26 2005
I'm so bad replying to emails. They just keep piling. I read them the moment they come, but something keeps me from replying or acting on them. How do you deal with emails? Do having specific blocks of time devoted to email writing works for you? How you balance replying to emails with the other parts of your work? Is anyone using Groupwise for your emails? Any tips for using it? The new version is able to attach labels to the emails and changes the color of the header accordingly. Now I have a very colorful inbox but as full as before. 41 Comments
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 Heh, less like a shrink,...Submitted by stevecooper on October 28, 2005 - 1:01am.
Heh, less like a shrink, more like a fellow patient ;) I decided a little while ago to work entirely from a list, because it seemed sorta illogical to put off doing my tasks because of all the other tasks I had to do. In GTD, there's a specific rule about todo lists; they have to contain direct, physical actions you can take, rather than just placeholders or outcomes or general instructions. You maintain a seperate list of outcomes you want. So, the todo list wouldn't contain; "Fix the display bug" Because that's too general. It's an outcome. I'd have to put down something like "Step through the Refresh() function in Display.cs, line 438" The idea here is that you should be able to get right down to the task without doing any other thinking. Writing the list takes a bit more time, but it's worth it. Now, I use a criterion for deciding if what I've written is good enough; I imagine that I have a skilled assistant with no initiative of their own. (Imagine Igor working for Dr Frankenstein.) Then I ask if I could give my todo list to that assistant and have them carry it out. If they'd stumble (remember, they have no initiative of their own) I need to add some detail to the tasks. So, for example, if I wrote "Book meal out for tuesday", my initiative-less assistant might come back saying 'Which restaurant? When? how many people? What's the number?" So I change the entry to "@PHONE Book table for 2, in Toto's, 7pm, Tuesday, 555 123123" Anyway, this ties back to what you were saying like this; If something's going on your someday/maybe list, it's probably in the form of a general, unspecific outcome, not a physical action. Stuff like 'Visit Dad at Xmas', and not stuff like 'book small car, dec 22-26, Avis 555 987987, due:2005-11-01". Now, if your task list is getting full of optional stuff, it's probably full of outcomes. If so, you can take just 1/2hr to go through it, cross off anything that's not compelling, and then split everything that's left into several distinct actions. So take 'Learn Spanish' and turn it into - @SHOP buy small spansh-english dictionary Each action is easy to get started on an nibble away at. Was that any help? » POSTED IN:
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