Here’s a fool-proof method of keeping your desk clean, your kitchen counter tidy, your bedroom closet in order, and your e-mail box on the first page!
Stephen Shields, knowing I like to keep a clean desk, sent me this flow chart for managing time and work. Though I’ve never been one to spend time figuring out how to be organized, I was interested in seeing how I do according to this chart. Here it is and my comments follow. (I think this stuff comes from a person named David Allen.)
It all has to do with “stuff.” What to do with your “stuff.”
First, when I get what he calls “stuff” — let’s say e-mail (I get about 100 /day) — here’s what I do. I assume it is “actionable” and I “do it” right then and there. About 99% of the time. The only e-mails I save in my mailbox are those I want Kris to look at, or those that I have to think about or wait for something for. That means about 1-a-day hangs on until the evening. I rarely have more than 10 in the box. The ones that are there are usually there to remind me to do something — like write a magazine article. I’ve got a couple readers sent to me about atonement, and I keep thinking I’ll read the “stuff.”
Second, that means I rarely delegate or defer and that thing called the “
By assuming everything is actionable, the e-mails are either responded to immediately (and not necessarily at length) or deleted. That keeps the mailbox clean, which seems to be part of the drive for me. Avoid clutter, I say to myself.
So, Stephen, it looks like I do what this guy says, but man there’s lots of stuff here to do with stuff.