#29 Email (Spring Cleaning)

This entry is easy. I already clean my email out regularly, have folders for items I feel I must keep and purge my trash on a regular basis. My usage runs between 3 and 6 % because I feel very strongly that every time you go into email you need to delete things you know you do not want to read; read what you need to; perform an action on that email and then get rid of it or store it in a folder. Very rarely should anything be left in the inbox. and what's really funny about this is I am a huge slob at home but I keep my inbox and my p: drive files cleaned out - but I've noticed that a lot of people who are very neat (in real life) are absolute pigs in cyberspace. Wonder why that is?

#28 Spring Cleaning

I am so glad we are doing this module - although I am not the neatest person in the world, I cannot stand that so many people (I'm not going to name names only because the list is endless!) never clean out their inboxes or clean up files they are no longer using. I think that many of us do think that space is free and this needs to stop. We've proven that our resources are not endless, that the landfills are not infinite, that we can't keep on cutting down all the trees, etc. and even though we think of drives as having unending space, they don't and space costs money. Anyway, this is one of my issues (yes, I do have a lot of issues, in fact, I think they are endless!) and I'm glad that HCPL is making actually accomplishing something a priority. I think that GTD is a good system, one that a lot of people use naturally. I use lists for everything. I have a work list which tells me what I'm doing next, when things are due, etc. and I have a personal list for the same thing - I've never thought about the fact that it frees up my brain to concentrate on other things, which is a very good point. I also think that people don't realize how much time they waste when they leave things in the inbox. I mean, seriously, how many times do we need to read that we have an item waiting for us. (Not even once, I think.) Just delete that immediately. Once you've read the post, take care of it. I think a lot of people use their inbox as their "will do something with later" but it shouldn't be. One of the things I learned as a secretary was "only touch it once." Once you pick up a letter and open it, take care of it and then move on. You should not be reading the letter again later and thinking about it and then reading it the next day, you should take care of it and go. Same with tasks. List, prioritize and do. Of course, somethings cannot be done in one sitting. But that should be listed - work on new class handout - means that you will work on it - not finish it. But the important thing is, if you are touching it you should be making progress and you shouldn't have to retrace your steps. For example, this is a scenario that all of the library people will understand. If you get a hold list and can't find an item, a lot of the time you will look at the item in the catalogue to see when it was turned in to determine if you should look more. for instance, if it's a popular DVD that was turned in a year ago and you don't see it, it's probably gone. If it's a DVD that is not so popular and it was turned in 2 days ago, look around a little. But, one of the things you should do is TRACE it the first time you look it up. There is no point in looking up the information and then looking for the DVD and then having to look up the item again to edit it. This is not productive. If you trace it and then you find it and send it through the trace is automatically removed. If you don't find it, the trace is there and you've saved yourself work. The bottom line is you need to think about what needs to be done and always be making progress when you are working. Working without making progress is frustrating and pointless.