How many items do you regularly carry in your inbox?
Well, if it is more than what recently arrived, chances are that you are using that inbox and its contents to remind you to do tasks related to those emails.
As Dr Phil would say, “How’s THAT workin’ for ya?”
Keeping hundreds of messages in your inbox is like having hundreds of papers strewn all over the top of your desk, in no files, in no piles, just sitting there waiting for you to root through them do decide what to work on next.
Using your inbox as a to do list is choosing the most dysfunctional, disorganized, and productivity sapping way to try to get things done. Why? Here are three reasons:
1. It essentially requires that you review each item each day to choose your next task, then do the same the next day, and the next. You’re repeating the same process every day.
2. Scrolling up and down, opening and closing messages, reading and rereading the same message is just plain wastefully unproductive.
3. It also is an instant source of morning stress, opening that inbox and viewing everything you’re NOT going to get done that day.
Our solution? Sort all items requiring your action to folders you’ve created for that purpose. Call them Action A and Action B – A for the important stuff, and B for the not so important stuff.Drag and drop the message there, and set a reminder for the date you want/need to view it to work it. Your reminder system then becomes the trigger for you to work that items rather than viewing it every day waiting for its importance to rise to the top.
