Protect some time – to process the new ‘stuff’ that comes in each day, you’ll need about 45-75 minutes each day. Not necessarily in one block, but as a total spread through the day. If you don’t protect this time to think about new stuff then do not be surprised when you are overwhelmed by your inboxes. (View Highlight)
Choose your moment – this requires focus and energy, so there is no point in trying to do it when you are too tired. Better to leave it in ‘in’ (where you know it will wait for you) for a time when you are feeling fitter. (View Highlight)
Avoid the Sisyphus Shuffle – just as Sisyphus was trapped rolling a boulder up the hill and having it repeatedly roll back over him, constantly jumping back up to the top of your inbox to look at the last thing that arrived means you’ll be much less likely to get to look at the oldest, and you’ll probably just confuse yourself with too much information on a variety of topics rather than staying focused on one thing until you have finished the thinking on it (View Highlight)
Start at the top – take the first paper / first e-mail / first whatever it is, and start there. You could start anywhere, of course, but jumping around all over the place often leads to avoiding the challenging things. (View Highlight)
Go one at a time, until you are at zero – simple to say, more difficult to do. Ask the simple questions we suggest: What is it? Is it actionable? etc. Just stay with them until they are thought through, the reminders are put into a system, and the originals either deleted or filed. One. Thing. At. A. Time. Your brain will love you for this. (View Highlight)
This is about thinking and deciding, not doing* – think each thing through, and make the decisions that you can make, given your current circumstances. We strongly suggest you don’t allow your thinking to result in next actions that start with ‘think about x’ or ‘decide about y’. Thinking and deciding is what you are doing now while you are processing. Otherwise you’ll just have well organized ‘stuff’. (View Highlight)
Go slow to go fast – this process might feel slow at the start, but if you continue two things will happen: you’ll get much faster at it, and – no matter how slow it feels in the beginning – you’ll be able to move like a rocket once you are working on lists that are clustered by place or by tool. (View Highlight)