How I get things done - 3

A friend said to me yesterday: „Actually, I’d have expected that Book I don’t need to buy anything at all – you always give me the best tips anyway.
So: Here are the next ones.
The biggest challenge for me – but also the most significant positive change – is to take the following advice to heart:
– When you’re sorting through your inbox, do one thing at a time. Don’t pick up the next sheet (or the next email) until you’ve decided what to do with the previous one. Incidentally, this also applies to filing.

My method so far has been this: I flick through or scan the inbox folder and deal with whatever I can sort out quickly and easily first. The rest gets left to one side for the time being – for „sometime“. But before „sometime“ arrives, a whole host of new things pile up that are easier and simpler to deal with. Over time, this has led to what I call ‘dead zones’: a whole pile of stuff where I haven’t decided what to do with it.

Now, when it comes to paper (99%) – and for emails, only about 80% – I follow this advice: pick up a sheet of paper and decide what to do.
– If it’s not relevant: bin it.
– If it needs to be kept for reference purposes, then put it in the filing cabinet.
– If someone else can do it – delegate.
– If I can do it in less than 2 minutes – do it straight away.
– If it takes longer than 2 minutes: decide what to do and add it to the to-do list.

That’s how I’ve spent the last week
– got the backlog down to „0“
– the Inbox folder has been reduced by approximately 70%
– My inbox and reading pile have shrunk a bit… but they’re still the biggest areas needing work.

But – there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I find myself thinking less and less often, „There might be something else I’ve forgotten,“ and I’m enjoying the energy it gives me to have greater clarity and even better, more helpful structures.

How wonderful!