The Personal Productivity Wiki

Email

by Tony

Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen

• "It's possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control."
• Advanced Common Sense

David Allen Company Podcast (iTunes Link)

Close email program or reduce the number of times it automatically retrieves email to once an hour to avoid being Pavlov's Dogto email.

Don't check your email--process it!

Checking email without dealing with it causes you to waste time re-reading and thinking about the email.

Process Email: The 4 Ds

• Delete if possible
• Do what needs to be done with the email and delete it
• Delegate the email to someone else
• Defer acting on the email as a final option
• Things you don't have time to process now you can right click and "Mark as Unread"

Inbox Zero - Information from 43Folders.com

• Try to keep the number of messages in your inbox at zero each time you process email
• Move information and to do to your calendar so you can delete the items from your inbox
• Keep answers to frequently asked question handy so you can copy and paste responses

Use descriptive email subjects so they are easily identifiable

• Hi Friday Attire
• Question Projector Fixed?
• Re: This Week's Tech Newsletter Record podcast next week
• Fwd: Re: Fwd: Paper Shortage Fwd: Paper Shortage

Clearly idenify any attachments in your email

• "Attached are two Word documents and a PDF"
• There's a Forgotten Attachment Detector for Gmail

Spam

• Have an extra email address you use to sign up for stuff
• Mark or report spam before deleting so the system can learn 
• Spam Gourmet for self-destructing email addresses

Bacn (pronounced bacon) is the term given to electronic messages which have been subscribed to and are therefore not unsolicited but are often unread by the recipient for a long period of time, if at all. Bacn has been described as "email you want but not right now."

• Unsubscribe to Bacn you never read 
•  Set Up Rules for Bacn
• Outlook
• GroupWise
• Apple Mail 

Feeling snarky when you receive an email that could be answered with a simple Google Search? Go toLetMeGoogleThatForYou.com