Jujutsu Email

I check email twice a day (unless some crisis warrants more frequent checks, but that's very unusual), once in the morning and once in the afternoon. And every time I check email, I empty my inbox completely. That's right, twice a day my inbox shows "0 unread". Makes me feel like a Ninja.

[picture source]

When I explain this to people, lot of people are stunned, and initially consider me a slacker. What if someone wanted to reach me at noon? I have a cellphone, and it's always on, so if it's really urgent, call me. It's like jujutsu: it sounds contradictory at first, but when you study it, it's actually quite powerful. And the more others assert their force on you (send you emails) the more powerful it becomes for you (you're not wasting those little extra minutes switching context to check those email). Everything is batch processed, and you get long uninterrupted stretches of time in between to get actual work done.

I also constantly ask myself: could I check even less often? Sometimes I won't really do a full check in the afternoon, but just a quick scan to see if there's anything important, and leave the full scan for the morning after. It works. And even more amazing is that people who have no idea how I work actually have told me they're amazed at my responsiveness!

Could I do once a week? Probably not. At least not in my current job. But I encourage you to find your minimal email-check-frequency. Big productivity boost lies ahead.

- Gummi

3 tasks

[picture source]

Are you one of those task ninjas who empty their inboxes twice a day, keep a tidy list of next actions, and treat your weekly cleanup like a ritual that's more important than your daughter's birthday? That's great! But are you really getting the right stuff done?

It's all too easy to be a task management guru, but lose sight of the bigger picture, and never really accomplish anything that matters. It's what some people call busywork, and that's a great word for this because it's really keeping a lot of people busy at work! There are so many people trapped in this mindless mode, people who never stop to smell the flowers... or at least figure out why they should be doing what they're doing.

In order to break this pattern, you need to proactively decide to do certain things, and do them because you think they matter. My method is very simple (and so very, very powerful): in the evening, when I've stopped working and my mind is wandering, I write down 3 tasks that I want to accomplish the next day. I consciously pick tasks that are important, and I would feel good about finishing during the day. They're not reactions to some emails I got during the day, or other isolated external factors. Then I strive to finish these tasks as soon as possible the day after.

Now let's do the math. Sometimes I finish all three, sometimes I finish none, but on average, I probably get 2 out of 3. So that's about 10 really important tasks every week. That's 520 (!) important tasks over the course of the year. When you look at it that way, that's not bad.

Assuming you have the basic task management in order, this is probably the best productivity (or effectiveness) boost you can get. Highly recommended.

- Gummi

Checking out OmniFocus

Just found out about this pretty cool application called OmniFocus. If I'm not mistaken (which I've been many times before on this topic) this might be the first application that truly makes GTD possible. There are so many tools that "sort of" help you do GTD but always fail at some critical piece. I've got my fingers crossed and will report back when I've given it a full spin.

Btw, I'm a huge fan of online services, and have been using Gmail (sometimes with GTDInbox) to manage my GTD system, especially because I can easily turn emails into actions (a large portion of my work is unfortunately conducted via email), send myself actions to remind myself, and access the system virtually anywhere. However, I also feel that a lot is missing from my setup to make the system truly effective, so I'm going to give a client solution a spin (or I might end up with a hybrid solution... hope not though).

Anyway, will have more details soon, just wanted to share this in case others wanted to try it out. If you have tried, share your thoughts in the comments.

- Gummi