Tag: Merlin Mann

Peter Bregman posted this at Psychology Today…

I’ve come to the conclusion that I use email to distract myself. Whenever I feel the least bit uneasy, I check my email. Stuck while writing an article? Bored on a phone call? Standing in an elevator, frustrated in a meeting, anxious about an interaction? Might as well check email. It’s an ever-present, easy-access way to avoid my feelings of discomfort.

What makes it so compelling is that it’s so compelling. I wonder what’s waiting for me in my inbox? It’s scintillating.

It also feels legitimate, even responsible. I’m working. I need to make sure I don’t miss an important message or fail to respond in a timely fashion.

But it’s become a serious problem. When we don’t control our email habit, we are controlled by it. Everyone I know complains about email overload.

Email pours in, with no break to its flow. And like addicts, we check it incessantly, drawing ourselves away from meetings, conversations, personal time, or whatever is right in front of us.

Source: Coping With Email Overload | Psychology Today

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of his thoughts. I’d like to share with you a way that I have found to control my email habit…

Tools without thought or tactics are worthless so I try to remind myself that email is best used as a tool for ‘just in time’ information – information that affects relationships and revenue. All your ‘just in case’ information belongs in a virtual newspaper like Google Reader. Think of how much lighter your email load would be if you didn’t let newsletters and other detritus in? How often have you started down the path to Inbox Zero and then been waylaid by a Victoria’s Secret or Cabella’s catalog in your inbox. There’s a time and a place for that; the time is your ‘personal news aggregation’ time and the place is Google Reader. My advice? Use Gmail for email with a touch of Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero and David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done’ and you’ll be an INBOX HERO in no time!

If you’re looking for help in this area, try my online book on ‘personal news aggregation’ or how to create your own personal news agency. You can register free at http://elevation.company/pna. Here are two recent lunch and learns I did on the topic of Gmail and Google Reader as well…

How to be an ‘Inbox Hero’ with Gmail…
http://youtu.be/hq5yksbplhE

How to be a Google Reader Rockstar…
http://youtu.be/6E-sP2kCf5I

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Email Overload: Download a Free Copy of David Allen’s Email Rules

Getting Things Done
Image via Wikipedia

Having problems managing email?

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done and inspiration for a lot of posts ’round these parts, gives away a free four-page PDF at his website that covers his basic principals for keeping email organized. Getting specific without going too in-depth, he explains the ‘two minute rule,’ why action-able emails should be kept separate from others, and why creating your own system—such as Gina’s [Trapani’s] modified ‘Trusted Trio‘. Great reading for GTD neophytes, and a good brush-up for the rest of us.”

Click here to get your copy! If you’re a Gmail user [and I hope you are] there’s more information here on how to use Gina’s system with Gmail or Google Apps mail.

Me personally? I use Gmail and Google Apps mail in conjunction with Remember The Milk [RTM]– the powerful task manager with the equally funny name. RTM gives me special tools to use within Gmail that allows me to convert an email to a task. In all fairness, Google now includes this feature in their task management system, however, it was not available when I built my approach to task management…

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