10engines

Wednesday, December 3

compulsive inboxing

Older article by Tim Ferris i just re-found. Worth looking at again, it discusses ways to ween yourself off email and generally smarten up your business practice. Greatest hits below, then the whole thing after the jump. BTW, great expression... "compulsive inboxing"...

-For each email he sends, he gets 1.75 to 2 messages in return. This phenomenon highlights the unscalable nature of most time-management approaches: striving to do more just produces increasingly more to do.

-Don't scan the inbox on Friday evening or over the weekend if you might encounter work problems that can't be addressed until Monday. This is the perfect way to ruin a weekend with preoccupation.

-Externalize follow-ups and to-do's in a small notebook like a Moleskine (or Field Notes ed.) instead of entering the "bet you can't eat just one" inbox.

-Once a decision generates more than four emails total in a thread, someone needs to pick up the phone to resolve the issue.

-Stop asking for suggestions or solutions and start proposing them.

-Less is more. Further reading.

lone ranger -refresh

Haven't read any 'books' in a while, but tore through a stack of these that i won at auction. Dynamite did a good job here (and the covers by John Cassaday are all great). I always like the backstory parts... won't spoil anything but for example a nice touch is LR riding past a saloon and the piano book is open to the William Tell overture. They are being released in collection already so no need to hunt for all the back issues. Or you can wait for the 'phone book' version (nerd alert if you recognize this lingo, guilty here.)