Get Things Done: Process My "In" Box To Empty

SOME DAY but not any day soon and I don’t like having it on my list, staring at me every time I visit, reminding me of what a digital pack rat I am. I may plug away at it but it’s not worth keeping on my list for another year.

Since I got back from vacation, I have been sort of dreamily drifting through my work days, unfettered by major projects or crises! This has provided a wonderful opportunity to spend some time cleaning up my In Box. Now, I may have said this before, I can’t really process it to empty since much of what is in my mailbox qualifies as “public records” and can’t just be deleted. But, by golly, it can be organized and archived and that is what I am doing. I have gone from more than 14000 e-mails in my inbox to about 11000 and I will continue to work it until it is perfectly manageable!

Having given this some thought I’ve realised that my inbox will never be empty. I always have so much to do, but in many ways I like it like that. From now on I’m just going to try and ensure priority tasks are done in a timely fashion and the rest of the ‘to do’ list is kept at a manageable level where it doesn’t make me want to cry and bury my head in the sand!

Yes, the In Box was packed when I got back from vacation but I have successfully handled about 90% of what was there. Now, I still have a LOT of things lingering from days and months and years gone by but I am working my way through it bit by bit.

Everything has finally been filed away, shredded, or recycled. I’m marking this as ‘done’, and hopefully I won’t have to add this goal to my list again anytime in the near future. lol

It’s the only way I’m ever going to get things done.

I’m trying to do clear my inbox each day, but am not disciplined enough to do it every day…..I know Monday morning will roll around and that is my catch up day. I keep a few hours clean each Monday morning to clear my desk, pay bills, and prepare for the week. It gets my week started off on the right foot.

Last week, I was able to carve an hour out of a couple of days to continue working on the InBox problem. I am making some progress. And, so far, I have not found anything that made me feel ashamed of myself (unanswered constituent requests, missed deadlines, etc.)

....I, too, am going through my email inbox. I’ve been on vacation so had a huge backlog. I took her advice and started at the bottom and deleted and sorted half of my backlog. Down to only 320 emails in my inbox!! Another session like today and I’ll have things under control! :D

I’ve been doing pretty well, but then had several day of “dump and run” when the stuff piled up on my desk. The good news is, because it was only a few days, I was able to sit down and cruise through it all in about 15 minutes. So it was easy to jump back on the wagon.