Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [9]
Remember the guiding premise: if overload is the problem, then removing the load is the solution. This has little bearing on e-mail volume, since for the most part, users can’t control how much e-mail they receive.4 Rather, the solution has to do with message count. Put plainly, here is the solution to e-mail overload:
Empty the inbox at least once a day.
In other words, clear out incoming e-mails before they pile up too high in the inbox. Delete most of them, file some of them (as described in the chapter on storing files), but most importantly, get them all out of the inbox before they become stress-inducing distractions. This is consistent, by the way, with the key ideas of the first three chapters:
“Bits are heavy”: a bulging inbox demoralizes users with feelings of overload.
“Your bits are your responsibility”: no tool or company can do this for you; you have to manage your own e-mail.
“To achieve bit literacy, let the bits go”: keep the inbox empty.
It’s not enough to get the inbox nearly empty, like down to a few dozen messages when it has held several hundred for the past few months. This means getting the count to zero—exactly zero—at least once a day. (Of course, this excludes days the user isn’t on e-mail, like weekends and holidays.)
Although it takes a small amount of discipline, it’s actually not difficult or time-consuming to maintain an empty inbox. Removing e-mails from the inbox doesn’t mean doing all the work described in them; it just means moving them to the right place, like a todo list, so that you can work on them once the inbox is empty. For example, an e-mail may arrive announcing a new long-term project. Completing the work that the e-mail refers to may take months, but managing the e-mail message itself only takes a second or two. If you can distinguish between an e-mail and the thing it refers to, you’ll be well on your way toward bit literacy.
Each daily emptying can be accomplished in the three easy steps described below. As the “steady-state” method, it assumes the inbox was emptied yesterday; the inbox should only contain e-mails that came in since yesterday (or the most recent zero count).5 Users who are new to the method will, of course, need to first go through the step of emptying the inbox for the very first time. That process, called “induction,” is described later in the chapter.
The Daily “Steady-State” Method
Let’s assume that you come into work in the morning, sit down at the computer, and see a new batch of e-mail. Perhaps there are twenty, fifty, or even a hundred new messages. Whatever the incoming volume of messages, don’t worry; the e-mail inbox was empty yesterday, and you can empty it again today. All it takes is this three-step process:
Step 1: Read all personal e-mails, then delete them.
Step 2: Delete all spam mail.
Step 3: Engage FYIs and action items, then delete them. In particular: Delete or file all FYIs, optionally reading them first.
Finish all quick “two-minute” todos, then delete them.
Move all big todos to a bit-literate todo list, then delete them.
Each step is covered in detail below.
Step 1: Personal E-Mail
First look for the most relevant messages: e-mail from family and friends. Open each message and read it. Savor it. Do whatever you want: save it elsewhere on the computer, perhaps in a “scrapbook” folder, print it out to post on the refrigerator at home, or forward it to a friend. Take this time to write a reply, if you want. But when you’re done with each personal e-mail, delete it. Nothing, no matter how important,