Wow, first time in over 5 years!

After reading in several blogs about David Allen and his book/process Getting Things Done, I decided to give it a try. The set-up has been significant, and I'm not done by any stretch, but I've finished my inbox, and for the first time since the day I started at Microsoft, my inbox is empty!

Jeff Sandquist has been a wonderful source of information on the process, as well as encouragement. The inbox took me right about 3.5 hours of focused effort, going from around 430 emails (all already thread compressed) to zero. Boy does zero feel good... WOO HOO!

If you are thinking of using this process, here are a couple of my implementation notes:

• The Outlook Add-in totally rocks (although of course I do have a few suggestions for improvements ;-)
• Many things that I think should take two minutes, actually take 5-10 (hmm, maybe that's why I have a hard time making it home when I say I'll be home?)
• I've discovered that I'm a very bad judge of just how long two minutes is (tonight on the way home I'm going to buy a timer to help train myself)
• When I create a task for an email that is going to take more than two minutes to deal with, I wish I would have started from the very beginning prepending “Review/Respond“ to the begining of the task name, as well as including in the task which folder I filed the email
• Allowing enough focused time for collection and processing is critical
• And lastly, Remember to bring your lunch if you're going to spend Sunday in the office

Comments

• Anonymous
  April 18, 2004
  w00t! Too bad there'll be like 50 emails waiting for you the next morning...
  
  Sorta like doing laundry, though, isn't it? You finish the last load and start all over the next morning...
• Anonymous
  April 18, 2004
  Congrats Laura! It's a great program--keep it up.
  
  Marcie
• Anonymous
  April 18, 2004
  Laura,
  
  Thanks for the tips, just went out and bought the book. Wish me luck :)
  
  William
• Anonymous
  April 18, 2004
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  April 18, 2004
  I started using the program about a month ago. It really has changed my approach to managing my work. I am much more organized and efficient. Now, i have to see how long this lasts, I am usually and early adopter and loose intrest fast.
• Anonymous
  April 18, 2004
  <b>The Four Criteria Model</b>
  
  I mentioned the idea of context in my earlier posts about Getting Things Done, and that is the first criteria in this model that you apply to make instant decisions about what to do next. Context is all about where you are and what tools you have at your disposal. The other criteria are Time, Energy, and Priority. Applied in this order, you can very rapidly filter your list of possible actions and make the best decision about the very next thing you can accomplish.
• Anonymous
  April 21, 2004
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  April 28, 2004
  A site about using Microsoft Outlook for Getting Things Done
  http://home.comcast.net/~whkratz/
• Anonymous
  August 01, 2004
  [href=http://www.dmoz.net.cn/ wangzhidaquang]
  [href=http://www.86dmoz.com/ jingpingwangzhi]
  [href=http://movie.kamun.com/ mianfeidianying]
  [href=http://www.kamun.com/ dianyingxiazai]
  [href=http://music.kamun.com/ MP3 free download]
  [href=http://www.pc530.net/ diannaoaihaozhe]
  [href=http://www.5icc.com/ duangxingcaixingxiazha]
  [href=http://www.dianyingxiazai.com/ dianyingxiazai]
  [href=http://www.yinyuexiazai.com/ yinyuexiazai]