Inboxes

Many years ago, I began reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. One of the first things I set out to do was to identify all my inboxes to determine which ones I would consider approved.

As time has gone on, this list has changed and I find myself occasionally having to revisit it.
 
Here is a sample list as of October 1, 2010:

E-Mail (Home)	infrequently used
E-Mail (Work)	ok
Inbox (Home)	ok
Inbox (Portable)	ok
Work vmail	ok
Cell vmail	ok
One Note	ok
Mailbox	ok
Wallet	ok

As you can see, just this a few common inboxes makes the list quite long. I really would enjoy fewer inboxes, but it doesnt seem likely yet, unless we change the way we store all this information. I have some thoughts and ideas, but will save them for a later post.

Life As a Knowledge Worker

Drucker points out a few interesting things in his article "My Life as a Knowledge Worker" in which he seeminly explains how he had no idea what he would become, but only that he would strive for perfection.

• Pick a subject and study it for 3 years
• Review past work yearly, write down the results you expected.
• Bring out strengths and improvements
• Ask people what they attribute their success to.

Notes on Listening

The following are some notes I've captured regarding listening, from various sources:

Good listeners quickly decide if a speaker has anything that can be of use.

Good listeners are sifters, screeners, separating the wheat from the chaff, hunting for the practical, and processing inflow for tasks or reference material.

Withhold evaluation until comprehension is complete.

Understand a POV before rejecting or accepting it.

Listen only for facts? NO!

Use ideas not just facts. Connecting threads from senses and system to whole.

Facts have little meaning out of context.

Conversations, avg 125 wpm. Speakers are about 100 wpm. Thinking is @ 400-500 wpm.

Anticipate the next point. If right, reinforces, if wrong, then why? Forces you to think.

Listening is a skill which must be honed and developed. I don't know if I agree with all the concepts here, but the basic concept is sound. Tune yourself to listen to the speaker, capture ideas, and process it all later.

Identify supporting material. People, books, websites, etc.

Bricks and mortar.

Examine logic for validity.

Point needs evidence as to what conclusions are based on.

When the speaker takes a break, make a mental summary.

Learning by listening.

Supporting material as the basis for logic, seem important. Lay out the logic, and understand the thought process.

Yealy Review

During my yearly review, I spend an entire day reviewing the years projects answering questions such as:

• Are there any loose ends?
• How can I learn from mistakes?

Following a review, I basically archive the project and forget about it. Email, documents, and everything else associated are moved to a DVD or network share, never to be seen again unless needed in the future. This has worked well for several years and allows me to keep email archive small (with only the current years email, along with relevant reference from years past), keeps my local documents folder small and reduces the time to back up, makes it easier to find things that are most relevant.

When I watched Merlin Mann's inbox zero talk on YouTube, I really started to debate the processes of archiving, filing, and searching information.

In a perfect world, I would completely automate this process to have something take my project offline when they are complete. Until that happens, a yearly review is what I use to help stay focused.

Expectations and Contingencies

Often times I've found that conflicts arise in different peoples expectations of certain situations. I think we all suffer from this at times. There are moments when we seem to expect people to do things, behave a certain way, or even think the way we do!

One of the tricks here is to build a common set of expectations for what you can or can't do. This is a key part of conversations that is often overlooked. If you begin with setting expectations, shouldn't the rest be easier?

Contingencies are a similar issue, how often do people have contingencies planned ahead? The value in having a spill over plan for example can be tremendous. Take a simple task for example, what if we knew there was a risk that the task might be bigger than we expected? Could we simply plan to have additional resources at the ready, should more help be needed?

Cornell Note Taking System

As a professional who always seems to be in meetings, and a long time student, I always find myself trying to improve my note taking abilities. One of my favorite methods to date is the Cornell Note Taking System, which splits a piece of paper into three sections. The left is a cue column, the right a note taking area, and the bottom a summary area.

Download the Cornell Note Taking System PDF

Turning Ideas into Action

Ideas are a great thing, however what is an idea that is not followed by action? Would a great idea fizzle and die away if never to be acted upon? Recently, I've been thinking about the concept of turning ideas into action. What if you had the power to take any idea and make it happen?

As I was researching some of the action terminology commonly used in the GTD system, I came accross a post on Behance's Action Method. This is an interesting twist on an age old concept. Basically the action method proposes that you always end a creative session with three things. The creative session could be a meeting you're sitting in, a magazine article you're reading, or possibly a discussion you're having with a friend about your next great getaway. The proposition is to capture your ideas in the form of three distinct categories: action steps, backburner items, and reference items. This is a pretty interesting and basic concept. Nothing terribly new here, but Behance does a nice job formalizing the process. This is very similar to Dave Allen's description in the GTD book and audio sessions.

Capturing
During the capture process, many ideas are bound to float around, bounce, and sometimes get lost. During this time, its critical to capture, capture, capture! Always strive to capture your ideas with verbs, this is something that will save you time later and make the idea a bit more clear. An example here would be "meet Sue to discuss project x", "follow up with Frank on project y", "review project k proposal" The actual verbs used should have meaning to you, I have a short list of common verbs I use, something I'll post about in the future.

Backburner
Always keep some ideas on the backburner, these are ideas that you might "someday maybe" do. Examples here may be ideas too big to be dealt with at the moment, but need to be captured and reviewed at a later date.

Reference
Many times, I've found ideas or thoughts to be reference. Facts are a good example "Cats don't like to take baths". There's no action here, its simply a reference item that will help us avoid futility later on. Keep the important reference items someplace handy, searchable, and archivable. This information is the meat that will help your ideas become tasty realities.