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Coming Soon: Posts on Filing

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The most common question I received on email was actually a request to do a post on filing in general. Lots of people wrote in to say that learning about filing is one of their greatest productivity issues.

What categories should you use for your computer files? What are the best practices for filing in general? How should one manage paper-based files (which, although secondary to electronic files, still have a place)? Is there a consistent category structure (or at least set of principles) to implement across your whole computer (documents, pictures, videos, iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) and then also your paper-based files?

I’ll be talking about all these things in the near future. Filing is a huge issue. A lot of time (and therefore money!) goes into the documents we create, and so it only makes sense that they should also be organized in an orderly, easy-to-access way. Making our documents and other files maximally accessible and useful is just as important as creating them in the first place.

If you set up your computer files right, you will have a streamlined workflow and save yourself a ton of time. If you don’t, your workflow is obstructed and just becomes less enjoyable in general.

Fortunately, there are some really solid principles on how to organize your files. I’ve done a bunch of research on filing (it started when I was organizing the DG website — there is a lot of overlap between website structure and filing, because both have to do with information architecture), and several winters ago I spent about 50 hours (yes, to my shame!) going through a process of trial and error to get everything right and document my conclusions.

I hope that the time I spent figuring out filing will save others a lot of time and help show a more enjoyable way to work as well.

So, that’s coming soon.

How to Manage Multiple Email Accounts

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In my post on getting your email inbox to zero every day, I asked for readers to send in their questions about email and I would post on some of them this week. I’ve received a lot of great questions — thank you to everyone who has emailed their questions or put them in the comments. Now, it’s time to start posting on the questions.

The first question is from a reader named Mark: “Could you go into the logistics of email accounts? I am trying to whittle down to two accounts, one for work and another for personal use.” Mark then goes into some of the problems he’s encountered. Another reader also echoed the same things

Most of us probably have several email accounts, so this question is very relevant.

Here are some the key principles I recommend and which we will be discussing:

  1. Have as many accounts as you need but as few as you can get by with.
  2. Bring everything into one interface, if possible.
  3. When you can’t bring everything into one interface, have a regular schedule for checking all of your accounts.
  4. Be as disciplined with your personal email accounts as you are with your work email.

After discussing these principles, we’re going to discuss solutions to three problems:

  1. When an account offers free POP and forwarding, but will not forward spam (hence, some legitimate email gets caught in the spam filter and is not forwarded).
  2. When an account provides POP only if you pay for it.
  3. How to cancel an email account while minimizing problems arising from the fact that people don’t always update their address book and that you may have a lot of website usernames to update.

[Read more…]

Email Etiquette

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Zach Nielson recently had a helpful post on using email well. Most of the points go to the issue of what I would call “email etiquette.” Some of the best tips are: “don’t confront people over email,” “work to have a balance between email and personal contact,” “learn people’s style,” and “hesitate before hitting reply all.”

Most important: When sending to a large group, use blind copy.

The Five Stages of Workflow

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We are accustomed to think of “doing our work” as involving simply one thing — the doing of the work.

In reality, there are five stages involved in getting our work done. Ironically, the actual “doing” of our work only constitutes one of the five stages. But if you don’t do the other four well, you won’t be able to actually do your work well, either.

These five stages are at the heart of the GTD process that David Allen outlines in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (see especially page 24). They are:

  1. Collect
  2. Process
  3. Organize
  4. Review
  5. Do

I won’t go into great detail at this time, but here is a quick summary of each of these stages.

First, you collect what has your attention. You take all open loops that are currently around you or on your mind and gather them into one spot (your inbox).

Second, you process what they mean by deciding what to do about them. This is what it means to go through your inbox (whether email or physical or an electronic inbox in a program like OmniFocus).

Third, you organize the results by putting any longer-than-two-minute actions on the appropriate list (or working file if you are handling email and the email itself will serve as the best action reminder).

Fourth, you review the options to decide what to do — that is, to decide “what’s best next.”

Fifth, you actually do. You work on the action item that you’ve decided.

It is important to keep think of these five stages as distinct. As Allen writes, “I have discovered that one of the major reasons many people haven’t had a lot of success in ‘getting organized’ is simply that they have tried to do all five phases at one time.”

How to Write Better Emails

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A major theme of this blog is that productivity is not simply about making ourselves more productive, but making others more productive as well. Writing better emails is a big way that we can make other people’s lives a little simpler and a little better. And it will save us time as well.

Writing good emails means writing them in a way that makes it possible to understand your point right away. It means writing your email to have high impact with minimal time investment on your reader’s part.

The most influential resource on my thinking on this area is a book with the unfortunate title, The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You. Here are 3 principles for writing better emails from this book and some other resources I’ve read.

1. Make the Subject Line Specific

Make the subject line descriptive so the person knows right away what the email is about. Don’t use a headline such as “Interesting,” “Good Article,” or even just “Proposal,” because they don’t provide anything specific about the content.

Instead, a good subject line would be something like: “Proposal for New Hires in 2009.”

2. State the Required Action, or Other Purpose, First

The very first thing should be a brief greeting, such as “Hi, Fred. Good job in the meeting today.”

But then move right to your point. State your point, as specifically as possible, in 1-3 sentences. If you have ideas that you want Fred to consider, for example, say that you have ideas for him to consider and state specifically (and briefly) what your main idea is.

Don’t just say “Fred, I have some ideas for you to consider,” and then spend 3 paragraphs getting to your main idea. Instead, state specifically what your idea is. For example, say: “I think we should consider hiring an additional widget manager next year because of the planned 23% increase in production. I am wondering what your thoughts are.”

3. Give the Background Second

After you’ve stated your main point, then provide the details.

This is key, so I’ll say it again: Give your main point, and then provide the background.

This is different from a detective story, or a novel, or any other type of writing where the discovery is part of the fun. With email, there isn’t time for this. And especially when doing work email, there is a business purpose to your email. You need to save the other person’s time by telling them your point right away, and then only after that providing the details in the event that they need to see things fleshed out more.

4. Keep Your Paragraphs Short

When providing the background, keep your paragraphs short. Wall of words are hard to read. Be short and to the point. And keep it relevant. Use bullet points when possible.

4. Close by Clarifying the Next Steps

If the background section gets longer than a few paragraphs, it is a good idea to close by summarizing the action step(s) again.

5. Don’t Forward Emails Without Summarizing the Point at the Top

Last of all, a word on forwarding: If you need someone’s opinion on something, don’t simply forward them a long email thread and say “what do you think?” Instead, summarize the main action you need from them right at the top, and then summarize the main point of the email thread.

Try to make it so that all the thread is needed for is to provide the details, if the reader feels that they are necessary.