How I use GTD to manage my email

I am a big fan of the David Allen getting things done system. His tips and tricks for time management are effective because they work whether you are paper based or electronic based in how you apply them. I have been able to achieve remarkable productivity increases use a combination of paper and electronic based tools to implement the GTD system.

If you go to David Allen's web site you will find some great tools and he has a free download that will explain how to set up a series of folders in your email system and mobile device. I use a blackberry connected to my office outlook, though this is a greatly reduced in capability blackberry for various compliance reasons. This is where mine is set up. The first thing I did was set up a series of folders in outlook to support the two minute drill.

In the outlook mailbox I have
1) @Actions folder where I drag any mail items that will take longer than the two minutes to process
2) @Waiting for folder where a copy of any request I have outstanding with someone else is placed. I review this file to determine what is outstanding and who needs to be followed up with.
3) @Touchbase here is where I place any emails that represent an ongoing exchange and though not a priority action or a waiting for I want to make certain to follow up with this person. This is a once a week folder versus everyday.
4) I then have a series of offline folders or in outlook terms "PST" files that I use to manage the large amount of emails and projects. These folders are set up by year and quarter

• 2008 - Q1
• 2008 - Q2
• 2008 - Q3
• 2008 - Q4

Under each of these folders I place sub folders to file all of the inbound emails

Alerts
These are auto generated emails from the various servers that provide activities of the status of their performance and batch jobs. They typically require no action on my part, my team is responsible but they are important for service level performance measurement. So I keep them filed for future reference.

Projects
Every project seems to have some form of email trail and I am still, many years after completion, referring back to legal contracts or other documentation related to project in 2005.

each major project has notes/minutes, documents/presentations, and other

I try not to get carried away with excessive file and directory structures but when you have to find something quickly a year later this system sure helps.

I then have a personal folder with Transactions, Network Activity, Travel, and Other.

With this set up I am able to handle my email traffic very easily and then incorporate this into the rest of David Allen's recommendations in the book Getting Things Done.

Meeting Dark Arts: Informational Meetings

The other day we had a global announcement call. This is one of those conference calls where everyone dials in from various locations to get an update on how the business is doing. A senior manager for the division then presents to a room full of people and everyone else on a conference call. These type of meetings have a unique challenge in that they usually have a very large attendance by people located somewhere else. Meaning they have to call in via conference line.

When I wrote in my earlier post, did we do enough, that the second most important task is communicating the situation to investors. management, and staff this is one of the communication mediums that I had in my mind at the time. This type of conference call has a particular etiquette that I wanted to share:

- Plan an extra 15 minutes on the front of the call
- Disable the inbound and outbound announcement feature
- Mute all dialed in lines during the presentation
- Ask that everyone attending place their mobile phone on silent
- Plant questions before the meeting
- Always repeat the question


Plan an extra 15 minutes on the front of the call to allow for phone line congestion. I don't know about you but as a presenter it is challenging to stay on the topic with a large number of people still on their way into the meeting. When you have a large attendance at these types of meetings it is better to just plan the extra time in. Especially when many conference call systems cannot handle the large number of simultaneous dial ins and back up the callers. So just wait for a few extra minutes to let everyone work their way through.

Yes I get the appointments that say dial in 15 minutes early also and I even used to do the same thing with my meetings. I stopped. Why? because if I am booked in meetings back to back there is no way I can dial in early. So yeah I have someone else set up the conference room. But the reality many staff members are in the same situation and they don't personal assistants that can do the dialing in for them. Therefore my recommendation is to go ahead and plan it into the meeting. This will also provide walking around the room time to meet various team members and suggest some questions, which I discuss a little later.


Disable the inbound and outbound announcement feature. Most conference call systems have a chime that will announce when someone has joined the call and when they leave. This chime is important for most calls it let's you know if you have others listening in on your call. However, for a call of this type it is really annoying because you tend to have a lot of late comers and then early leavers.

Mute all dialed in lines during the presentation. As the administrator on the call you have the ability to mute all other attendees on the line. This is an important practice. Thus eliminating my biggest pet peeve the "heavy breather"when some undoubtedly has their headset microphone set to close to their nose or mouth. This is my biggest frustration on calls, ask any of my staff (I am known for sending emails to remind individuals to mute their phones even after I announce the rules for the call)

Ask that everyone attending place their mobile phone on silent. All of the external lines should be muted so there will be less chance of interruption. but I am a big "belt and suspenders" man and want to make extra sure that we have as few interruptions as possible. I often explain that out of respect for all attendees please place your phones in silent mode just like in the movie theaters.

Plant Questions before the meeting
It often takes some time to get a group to loosen up enough to ask questions. Which is why I recommend planting a few managers in the audience with some of the tough questions that everyone wants to ask. There are two reasons for this. First, in many cultures meetings are for updates only and thus most of the questions never get asked. Second for the culture where this is not an issue it let's the attendees know that it is okay to speak.

Always repeat the question. I have found that no matter what, even if I am in the main conference room I am not able to hear at least one question when it was asked. The presenter should always repeat the question that was asked so that all attendees can hear. If the question is a long then paraphrase the question before answering. This will give all of the attendees a chance to hear what the question was.

I have found these six guidelines are very helpful in running the large information only meetings. Hopefully they will work for you as well. If you have any additional ideas that will help meetings go more smoothly I look forward to hearing from you.

If you liked this post you might like:
Meeting Dark Arts: Meeting Management
Meeting Dark Arts: Conference Call Etiquette
Meeting Dark Arts: Publishing Minutes
Meeting Dark Arts: Taking Notes
Meeting Dark Arts: Video Conference Etiquette

written by: Jeffrey Hurley in Central, Hong Kong

15 Minutes a Day Can Change Your Life

One simple trick applied for 15 minutes a day can change your life. That simple trick is reading something positive or uplifting 15 minutes right before you go to bed. Turn off the TV set a timer and read. That is all there is to it. So why is something so simple so difficult to do? Well to be effective you need to apply the rule everyday regardless of how tired you are, this is a commitment to yourself and you will need to work at it to keep up even when you are so tired all you want to do is go to bed.

I have a regular queue of books that are lined up for reading rotating then in the order listed:

- An uplifting book. Usually in the self help genre that will provide some tool set that I can apply to my life right away.
- An industry book. part of my personal commitment to continuous learning requires that I spend time building my industry specific skills and new skills
- A fiction book for pleasure, I do stay away from the horror genre.

According to the Helpguide.org REM sleep or dream sleep is the stage that is associated with processing emotions, retaining memories and relieving stress. Giving your mind something positive to think about all night long will leverage this processing period during your sleep. Michael Hyatt has a great post on taking a break from the news that essentially comes down to what you are putting into your head impacts your view of the world.

Loren taught this 15 minute reading technique to me over ten years ago and he explained that if he is too tired to read he actually stood up and read until the 15 minute timer went off. The level of commitment to the goal is as important as material you are reading. If you want to see a change happen that will open a new world of opportunities and ideas make a daily 15 minute commitment to yourself.

I have applied this tool for years with excellent results and when, like Oprah, I do revert backward it is a simple step to get back on track. This simple solution allows me to keep my goals for continuous learning, an escape from the world, and positive reinforcement. A simple 15 minutes a day plan can change your life.