How to turn your mailbox into a GTD system

As is known, GTD is a technique in which tasks that can be transferred to external media should not be held in mind. The role of such media may well serve your mailbox. In most cases, chaos and orgy is created in users ’inboxes, however, in this article we’ll share with you today the experience of turning a mailbox into a powerful GTD tool.



UPD Read helpful tips in the comments!
')
There are various techniques and techniques devoted to how to make 36 of 24 hours and at the same time get enough sleep. Some of them are quite reasonable. We list at least the simplest rules:

1. “Give it to everyone - the bed will fall apart”: say “no” to unnecessary things, reject tasks that do not move you towards the goal.
2. “Do not be a seven-finger eight-course”: avoid multitasking, i.e. Do not do several things at once. If you do the tasks one at a time, concentration increases, and you do more in less time.
3. “ Pomodoro ” - a technique with such a funny name suggests you to set a timer for 25 minutes for one thing and to strive to keep within the allotted time.

According to various studies, the mailbox is one of the most brutal and ruthless “chronophages” after social networks and games: you can really figure out the mail indefinitely and in the end it’s still not clear what exactly needs to be done now.

Empty Inbox

To change this situation in your favor, learn a simple rule: always keep your inbox empty. It sounds simple, in fact it really saves time and allows you to keep your focus on important tasks. Leave in the "inbox" only those letters that push you to action. After the action is completed, delete the letter. In order to quickly sort the letters according to this principle, let us establish a specific order of sorting tasks, just as GTD sorts tasks.

Postpone separately unimportant letters

You will have many letters that do not imply a specific task that must be completed so that you can then delete the letter. Such letters are divided into two groups: those that can be immediately removed, in 1-2 seconds: as a rule, these are various mailing-shops-online publications to which you are subscribed. If there is no time to read all this today, but you would like to read them later, move all these letters to the “Read on weekend” folder. And read at your leisure in a relaxed way, and then clear the folder.

Football post

The second group of letters that do not create lines in the task list are letters that need to be returned. For example, you agree on a purchase and it is not yet clear to you whether you will buy it or not - this is a “futololt” letter to an addressee with some question. Thus, you will give the addressee to understand that you have not disappeared, you maintain contact with him, at the same time, the letter will return to you in a day or two, which means that the person and the affair will automatically remind of himself. True, this rule is true in relation to work and when people are interested in you no less than you are in them. This option is not suitable for personal correspondence - many friends and acquaintances in my mail can answer nothing at all, and only then, at a meeting, remember that they received a letter.

Answer in 5 minutes

Continuing the theme of "football" - try to answer all the letters within 5 minutes. It is difficult at first, but an effective technique, aimed at ensuring that your mailbox does not accumulate too many letters.

And remember that you are not writing an answer for the sake of an answer, but in order that as a result of the correspondence there is a letter in your inbox that pushes you to action. After the letter is answered, delete it from the Inbox.

Letter = line in the task list

What is a “pushing for action” letter? For example, a friend sent you his link to facebook is an action letter: you add a friend and delete the letter. For example, the final letter in the negotiations on the purchase of a resource: all the details are confirmed, you form a package for the transaction and draw up the necessary documents. It is better to immediately send a letter confirming the meeting to the Outlook calendar, if the sender did not do this. Etc.

Develop your tactics of sorting letters on these three channels: delete - return - execute and delete.

Archive it!

Perhaps, instead of deleting letters from the recycle bin (they are periodically cleared from there), you will want to click on the “archive” button, available, for example, in Gmail. So the letter is preserved, but at the same time it is in the archive and does not sore eyes to you. If you need to find the details of the old correspondence - you can use the search by mailbox.

Monitor performance

If you have at the same time only 3-4 emails hanging at which you are currently carrying out some activity, and if you “closed” them by the end of the day, and you have successfully worked / deleted all the rest of the current correspondence, you have saved a lot of time. Call-to-action letters allow you to focus your efforts on one task and move on to the next one after it has been completed and deleted. You avoid multitasking, maintain concentration and increase productivity. Excess mail does not hang in the "inbox", which means that you do not need to sort it out every time, wondering what to do now and "why this letter at all." Having made a quick sort of incoming, you immediately see what you need to do and thus get yourself a ready-made list of tasks.

Time management techniques emphasize that time is your irreplaceable and most valuable resource. Using simple techniques like the ones listed above, you can really efficiently allocate time so that you not only have time for everything, but also make sure that it stays for rest.

Sign up for a test drive of UniSender mailings : 3 mailings on the basis of up to 500,000 addresses are absolutely free - evaluate the possibilities of our service yourself.

PS Share your experience using mail to organize your tasks in the comments.

PPS More interesting posts and useful links - on our facebook page every day. Like?