Mastering Your Email and To-do List to Reduce Stress at Home and Work

HACK YOUR LIFE

HACK MY LIFE?• “Contrary to the popular misuse of the term to denote a computer criminal, a hacker is

someone who solves a problem in a clever or nonobvious way. A life hack is a workaround or shortcut that overcomes the everyday difficulties of the modern worker. A lifehacker uses clever tech tricks to get her work done.” – Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better by Gina Trapani

• Think MacGyver…for the boring stuff

• There is a whole world of “lifehacking” material to share, today we’ll focus on two:

• Email

• To Do Lists

HACKING MY INBOX• Inbox Zero

• It IS Possible

• How?

• Batch Process

• Act on every email

• Delete

• File (If more than two minutes)

• @Action

• @Read/Review

• @Follow-up

• Reply (If less than two minutes)

• Admire the empty inbox!

HACKING MY TO DOS• Empty your head

• Create your list

• Organize your tasks

• Remember to review

• “Sprint through your list”

• Note: This is a slight modification to the workflow methodology found in David Allen’s “Getting Things Done.”

EMPTY YOUR HEAD (AND YOUR TABLE)• No, I’m not talking about transcendental meditation

• Your brain is a horrible secretary

• Get everything out of your head and onto:

• Paper

• Computer

• Phone

• Whatever (works)

• Basically anything you want to act (read, file, reply, etc) needs to be put somewhere you can look at it

CREATE YOUR LIST• Take everything from your brain dump/desktop sweep and ask, “Is this actionable?”

• If not, trash (or recycle!) it/delete it OR

• If you might need it as reference/keepsake store it in an appropriate place

• If yes, it goes on your list

• And put it into your appropriate “To Do” list (work/home/etc)

• If something has a deadline, it goes in the calendar

REMEMBER TO REMEMBER• Set time each day/week to go through lists as appropriate

• Set a time to empty your head/collect items to be worked on (D.A.’s “Collecting” phase.); though ideally you will be doing this constantly

• Then set a time to put items into appropriate lists, calendars, or extra-large trash cans

“SPRINT THROUGH YOUR LIST”• Take the list and do it!

• This is why contextualizing lists can be very helpful

• Consider the “Sprinting Technique” for staying focused on getting things done

• Also check out the Pomodoro technique

REFERENCES• “Getting Things Done” by David Allen

• “4 Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferris (chapters 5-7)

• lifehacker.com

• pomodorotechnique.com

• getitdone.quickanddirtytips.com

• inboxzero.com

• thesecretweapon.org