The Holy Grail: an empty inbox

My e-mail inbox drives me crazy.  I hate it.  The number of e-mails in my In-Box makes a huge difference in how overwhelmed I feel.  If I have over 400 e-mails, I feel that my work life is out of control.  I feel hopelessly behind.  At these times, I just know that I must be missing commitments right and left, that there are lots of people who feel I've let them down, who are wondering why I won't answer their urgent requests, who think that I don't care much about their needs.

At 300 e-mails, I feel I'm still behind but I'm catching up.  At 200, I feel I'm contributing at a high level.  At 100 or less, I feel like they are DARN lucky to have me working for them.

I do a lot more in my job than react to e-mails.  But the size of my inbox is still the best indicator of the degree of control I feel over my workload.

In his book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, David Allen says many people refer to an empty inbox as the "Holy Grail" of his "Getting Things Done" (GTD) system.  GTD is much, much more than an empty inbox, but this is one of the ultimate, visible rewards of using the system.

A cluttered e-mail inbox or a full paper/mail inbox distracts me from whatever else I'm trying to do on that computer or in the room with the paper inbox.  It grabs my attention because I'm concerned that there is stuff in there that I ought to be doing, but I'm not sure what it is.  Always calls a bunch of e-mails "stuff" because it is no clearer, no more distinct than the word "stuff".  I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with this "stuff".  Do I trash it?  File it for future reference?  Is there an action I should take?  Should I take it now, or save it in a list of ideas for future actions?  Until I've made AND documented these decisions and any resulting action that I need to do, it's all just "stuff" that I might need to do something about and it might be very important.  I can't concentrate on other things very well when there are 400 items that might need me to act.

Allen's GTD system is unique among time management systems in its insistence on getting the inbox to zero every day or two, and unique in the process it teaches you to get there.  I've never made it.  I get at least 50 e-mails a day, and it feels as I have to pick between processing these e-mails and doing my main job.  But I think I'm wrong about that.  I haven't followed rigorously enough the GTD flow-chart for getting through e-mails quickly.  I can't describe the whole process here, but it involves first making decisions about each e-mail at lightning speed (trash it?  file it? act on it?), then--if there is action required--either doing it right away or adding the action to the appropriate list.

In the last couple of weeks, I've gone from over 300 e-mails to just under 90 while being buried with deadlines, developing and delivering training programs, and creating the most complex computer programs I've ever developed.  As always, every time I break another 100 e-mail milestone, there is a huge psychological effect for me, the way stockbrokers get giddy every time the Dow reaches another 1000 point milestone.  I've GOT to make it to zero soon, and it should be no harder to maintain a level near zero than it has been to maintain 300 or 400.

Getting Things Done-an overview

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life describe David Allen's "Getting Things Done" or "GTD" methodology.  I believe this is almost surely the most effective and well thought out time management system ever.  But it isn't easy to do, which is probably why I--like many people--didn't implement it fully the first time I tried it and did not get the full benefits.  I'm trying it again, and I'm determined to get it right this time.

As I mentioned in my last blog, a person who uses GTD correctly expands their brain in an area where the brain is weak.  A good GTD system adds memory to the brain, the way that an external hard drive adds memory to a computer.  But this external hard drive is quite specialized.  Allen writes that it needs to store all the information needed to gain perspective and control on your actions.  For perspective, you make lists of your goals from the highest, most general level (mission, dreams, purpose in life) to the most mundane, short term projects.  For control, you develop action plans, organize them, and follow the plans.  Both parts of the system--perspective and control--will only work if you make a habit of regularly reviewing and updating all the lists and plans.  Only then will your mind trust all the lists you're making and will let go of the compulsion to apply part of it's energy to "trying not to forget" what you need to do.

The Brain: a flawed Supercomputer

I think there is one concept that sets David Allen's time management system apart from all other approaches to time management.  This one concept is that the brain is a supercomputer with a lousy memory.  A good time management system says to your brain, "Don't worry.  I know you can't remember appointments, all the commitments you've made, your short and long term goals, all your projects, all the tasks you must do, and all the tasks you might want to do someday.  I'll take care of this.  I won't lose any of this information.  Whenever you want to retrieve it, it will be neatly organized so that you can find it and review it quickly to decide what to do next."

The brain has no folders to store it's memories.  When you try to recall things, you remember some things but forget others.  It's like a Google search.  Some of what comes up is meaningful, some isn't, and you may not find what you want.

When the brain tries to make sure you don't forget some key information, it applies some of your mental energy and effort to keeping those that information "in the back of your mind".  But the energy your brain uses to "try to remember to . . ." is energy that is no longer available to you in THIS moment for the task at hand or for just being aware of the present moment.  When you "try to remember" to do something later, you lose some of your ability to do something now.

Allen seems to have devised his Getting Things Done (GTD) system around these thoughts:  "What would be the ultimate system for organizing goals and plans so that a person's brain can let go of trying to remember these things?"  If the time management system is flawed, the brain will not let go.  It doesn't want you to fail, so it will keep trying to remember your goals and plans.  If your lists of goals, projects, and tasks are incomplete, the brain will not let go.  If you don't review these lists often enough and start missing commitments, the brain will not let go.  If these lists are hard to find or hard to review, the brain will not let go.

I sense that if you use the GTD system correctly, your brain WILL be able to let go, to turn over the job of remembering your goals and plans to the GTD system.  The brain can then do what it does better than any man-made supercomputer:  apply intelligence and intuition to the task at hand.

"Getting Things Done" for mind, heart, and soul

Obviously, I might accomplish more if I master the "Getting Things Done" (GTD) system from the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.  But this isn't the main reason I want to master it.  Mostly, I'm looking for mental, emotional, and spiritual gains.  Mind, heart, and soul.

Mentally, I want to let go of all mental energy that I now apply to "making sure I don't forget something" related to possible future action.  As Allen points out in his book, most of us don't apply all of our mental energy to the current moment or the task at hand.  We divert part of our mental energy to "making sure we don't forget" promises that we made, deadlines, priorities, stuff we noticed in a huge pile of e-mails or a stack of papers, project ideas, and things we think we should do someday.  I want to use the GTD system to so that I learn to trust that my time management system is complete:  all my goals, commitments, possible tasks, deadlines, and priorities are captured and organized for easy access.  I can then relax and focus more mental energy on the CURRENT task.  This will enhance the quality and creativity of my work

Emotionally, I want to feel as if I'm in control.  I want the confidence that the thing I'm working on right now is the thing I should be working on.  I don't want to wonder if there could be 10 other things I've forgotten about that I should be doing instead.  I want to avoid the nagging suspicion that I've missed a promised deadline, disappointed someone, and I don't even realize it.  I want enough control and perspective that I easily align my actions with my core values and priorities.  I want to feel as if I can count on my self.

Spiritually, I want to empty my mind of unnecessary chatter--a key goal to deepening awareness of the present moment, both in meditation and in active engagement with the world.  The mind that is empty of needless chatter is the Buddhist's mind, the mind of peace and focus.  As I watch my own mind from day to day, and when I meditate, and when I try to fall asleep, I see that my biggest source of mental chatter, the thing that pulls my attention away from my breath, away from music, away from whatever I'm trying to focus on is thinking about all the stuff I gotta do.  If GTD helps me stop the noise, it will be worth it even if I DON'T get more things done!

Getting Things Done--the next focus

"Character Camp" was a great start to getting our family dynamics on the right track, but now I need to work on a breakthrough in the second biggest challenge in my life right now:  getting things done.  Getting a sense of control when I'm inundated with seemingly infinite demands, especially at work.

I'm going to try a time management system that I tried before.  In hindsight, I think I got a few benefits from my past experience with this system, but I think I would have gotten much more if I had followed the system "by the book".  I'm going to do it right this time.  The system is described in David Allen's books Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and its sequel Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life.

Allen focuses on the effect on the mind of having a backlog of commitments that is more than you can comprehend.  The goal of his system is to organize your backlog so that you CAN wrap your mind around it and focus on what is important right now.  He wants to free you of the nagging sense that there are many important things you are forgetting about or commitments you are failing to deliver.

Beyond the framework

 "Character Camp" provided the framework--the principles of how we want kids to behave.  But once the principles are clear, you still need to fill in the rules.  You want to be centered on principles, but then you need to define the rules.  One of the principles we discussed in "Character Camp" was to set clear expectations.  Defining clear rules is part of this.

I created the list,  What we Expect from Our Kids, after a rough day with the kids.  I went through an entire book on manners, looking for those things that seem to be most important for our family situation.  The book was 365 Manners Kids Should Know: Games, Activities, and Other Fun Ways to Help Children Learn Etiquette.

So what did we get out of "Character Camp"

How'd you like to live in this house?  What's the problem?  You've got a foundation and a frame.  The house is 90% built. But it won't keep out the rain, the wind, or burglars.

Similarly, with "Character Camp", we've laid the foundation and the framework of how our kids need to behave so that they can succeed socially, spiritually, physically, and economically.  But the rain can still pour in until we add the drywall and the roof.

The day that the kids graduated from "Character Camp", I took them Go-Kart riding and Mini-Golfing to reward them for taking "Character Camp" seriously.  The behavior of our oldest child at these events was pretty bad.  Does this mean that our "Character Camp" was a failure?  Or does it just mean that a foundation and a frame is not enough to make a home?

I think we can be grateful for this:  "Character Camp" gave us common terminology, principles, and goals.  But the house will still leak if it doesn't have walls and a roof.  Similarly, it's no surprise that our kids are still doing things that make us mad.  We have the principles and the language we can use to talk to them abotu what they do.  But it's going to take time and effort before they develop behaviors that keep the rain out of the "house" and keep the burglers at bay.