Habitually Good

I have always followed the concepts of David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done), and the various adaptations of it for years. I have even tried out a lot of these from time to time to take control of all the emails that I get every day at work (and I get a ton of them). No method has ever worked for me, and I finally reached a conclusion that I have to come up with a custom method which suits me best. It of course reflects the basic tenets of GTD, but not necessary the letter.

In this post, I will be present the method that I am using to ensure what is referred to as Inbox Zero. Inbox Zero starts with the premise that at steady state, there should be zero emails in your inbox, and if that is not the case, work needs to be carried out to achieve that steady state.

I have been using a method for almost a month now, with an Inbox Zero almost everyday.

Let me begin by describing how I have setup my Outlook (which is what I use as my email program).

The Setup

First of all, I setup my Outlook as following:

• Create 3 PSTs (Outlook Data Files): one called Main to receive email, another called Processed to keep email that already have been worked upon, and a third called Secondary to store emails that don’t require active attention.
• Main PST – of the three PSTs, this is the one that is holding the Inbox which is supposed to be Inbox Zero.
• Processed PST – this is the PST where you will be manually moving a lot of your email as you process your inbox. Feel free to setup a folder structure in this PST to your liking. You can leave it to be one folder, or create folders for people, projects, etc.
• Secondary PST – this is where a lot of the mails will be moved through automatically processing using Outlook Rules. Again feel free to create whatever folder structure that you want.
• Take a look at your incoming email from the past month, and start identifying patterns. A lot of email is received as FYI information because you are part of a mailing list. This email can usually be looked at over a weekend, or skimmed once during the day. For each such category, create an Outlook rule which automatically moves these emails to a folder in the Secondary PST.

The Method

Having created that basic setup, let me explain the method that I apply to achieve Inbox Zero. Each mail, that remains in the Inbox on arrival (remember that some are being moved automatically through rules), has to be categorized in one of the three categories of actions:

• Process – that you will work on it right away, without looking at any further emails. Usually these are smaller tasks that can be done quickly (like responding to an email).
• Delete – these are emails which can be junk that finds its way to the inbox, or any mail that you want to typically look at the subject or a line or two in the body, and just delete. A lot of times these emails are left unread in the inbox and cause clutter, causing some important emails to be lost.
• Defer – these are emails that you have to process but cannot right away.

I go through each email every day, and based on the category they fall in, I carry out the following actions:

• Processing – this requires carrying out whatever action that is needed to mark the email as processed and completed. It could be a response, it could be creation of a document, or anything. The main thing to remember when processing an email is that till the email is processed, it doesn’t leave the inbox. This is important, so I repeat: Till the email is processed, it doesn’t leave the inbox. This is important because one of the biggest reasons for dropping tasks is if you are in the process of doing one, and are interrupted for something else. You may forget to get back to it later. But by keeping the email in the inbox, you still need to take one of the three actions on it whenever you visit your inbox to bring it to steady state, which will allow you to get back to it.
• Delete – simply select it and press Delete.
• Defer – this requires putting the task associated with this email on hold with the understanding that you will carry it out later. I have a folder in the Main PST called deferred tasks, I move the email to this folder (notice I don’t move it to the other PSTs). However, before moving the deferred email to this folder, I create a task for it in Outlook, with a reminder date and time (a guess about when I will get to it). Sometimes, I put the task on my calendar, if I want to block off a time slot on my calendar for that task. Only after I have set myself a reminder for this task, do I move the email to the Deferred folder. When it comes time to work on the task, a similar rule for applies as for the processing mails – Till the task is processed, you should never mark it as complete or dismiss its reminder in Outlook. Again, it is important for the same reason. Once the email is processed (task completed), you can move the email from the deferred email a designated folder in the Processed PST.

For all the emails that I move to the Secondary folder, I go through them from time to time to see if there is anything that I need to read about, or possibly take action on. Usually this is done once a day.

This entire process is repeated till there are no more emails left in the Inbox. To me every time I hit that, it gives me a feeling of Nirvana .

A little more needs to be said about the deferred tasks/email:

• Never defer a task without assigning a reminder to it.
• Never close your reminder window (which will pop-up to remind you of your tasks), without either snoozing the tasks which it is showing (thus extending your own deadline) or dismissing the tasks (which means that you have completed the task and moved it to processed – as discussed above).
• Keep a personal limit of how overdue are you going to let a deferred task be.
• It is important to clear up the deferred tasks folder when you have free time every time you achieve Inbox Zero.

The Optimization

Of course nothing works perfectly from the word go. And a process has to be tweaked all the way to ensure that it stays successful. So far, I have added a lot of tweaks to my method to make it easier for me. Here they are to get your imagination rolling for what you can do to make it easier for you, if you attempt to go for an Inbox Zero approach.

• The Rules – I created a lot of complex rules for the automated movement of the emails. For example, even within the emails that get moved to secondary, I mark some of them as read mails, and others as unread based on which ones I want to give priorities to when I skim over the secondary folder. I added exceptions to the rules when mails were marked personally to me, and other such tweaks.
• Toolbar Buttons – I added a custom toolbar with two buttons to save me a few clicks – one “Add Reminder” button clicking which automatically creates a follow up task with a reminder that you can specify. Another to mark all emails in a folder as read “Mark Read”. These buttons save me a lot of clicks every day.
• Favorite Folders – Outlook has a feature which allows you to specify some favorite folders that show up on top of the left navigation window. I keep the most commonly used folders there to which I usually move my email out of my inbox. That helps me speed up the movement of the email out of the Inbox.
• Flag Colors – when adding a reminder to an email, you can usually choose the color you want to give the task. You can use the colors to specify priority within deferred tasks. This gives you a visual aid when you start tackling deferred tasks.

The Conclusion

Well, the best way to conclude is that it is working for me. And if you decide to adopt a similar methodology, and have questions, feel free to post them. Remember, you will have to customize it to whatever makes you feel most comfortable.

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