Woohoo! For the first time in years my email inbox is empty!

It is really odd actually: now Thunderbird looks like it’s frozen and stuck in redrawing the right side of the screen. It’s disturbingly white!

But it feels good. The last time that happened was actually 2004! (based on the oldest email that was in my inbox…)

So how did I do it? No merit: I just moved it all into ACTION folders! :roll:

Well actually, it’s more subtle than that:

  • anything that wasn’t actionable got deleted or archived
  • anything that could be answered or done in less than 2 minutes got handled and archived/deleted.
  • anything that required more than 2 minutes got into an action folder.

So far, it’s basically plain David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”.

And so far: there’s a hell of a lot of stuff to do in the ACTION folders! :(

This is where I’m going to start the real optimization… inspired by Tim Ferris’ “4 hour workweek”. For each item I need to decide:

  • Can I not act on it and forget about it?
  • Can I delegate it to someone else?
  • Can I automate it so I don’t get the same problem again in the future?
  • and last resort: just do the goddam thing! :p