June 17, 2008

Email in-box overload

Posted in Time management tagged , , , , , , , , , at 12:23 am by Andrea Kappler

I heard an oh-so timely story on NPR‘s Morning Edition while driving to work on Monday. They were talking about the volume of email most of us receive, which for some folks (like me) is in the thousands– new or unread emails in the in-box– every day. I can sympathize with that!

They said email is still overwhelming for most people, despite the fact that phone or instant messaging has cut down on some of the email traffic. To make matters worse, some people are their own worst enemies because they use the “reply all” feature, which generates even more email. Steve Innskeep discusses this with Will Schwabe, co-author of a book about email overload, Send: The Essential Guide to E-mail for Office and Home. I know I send myself lots of “bcc” emails, mostly to create a digital paper trail so I have proof I sent something of importance to a vendor or an employee. I also sign up for discussion lists and newsletters with the best of intentions to stay informed, but then struggle to find time to read them. Guess I’m guilty as charged. When I’m done clearing out my overflowing in-box after just one day out of the office, I’ll have to see if this book has any useful tips I might share here.

They also said companies like Yahoo are thinking of email as a social network, since we tend to regularly email the same family members and co-workers. I’d have to agree with that, too. Years ago, we had a nasty email virus at work that replicated itself through people’s address books. What tipped me off that something weird was happening were the empty ‘messages’ from library staff I didn’t usually correspond with. I cautiously opened their messages but not their attachments (since I wasn’t expecting any from them) and was lucky enough not to catch or spread the virus.

May 12, 2008

Workload exceeds maximum!

Posted in Organization, Time management tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 11:09 pm by Andrea Kappler

Each time I got a voice mail today, my voice mail system gave me an ominous warning that my inbox was getting so full, it was considering not letting me hear any messages. It told me I had to delete or move emails first in order to free up space. It came down to my basic curiosity– how bad did I want to know who the caller was or what they wanted? Would it be worth it to free up inbox space just to find out I had a new task, project, or problem to handle?

Hmmm… curiosity got the better of me. I decided to squirrel away some unread newsletters that were piling up. I stuffed them into a folder on my hard drive, along with dozens of other unread newsletters from the same sender. Sigh… wish I had time to read them. Maybe someday…. Wait- forget that daydream of getting caught up– the voice mail beckons. After hearing it, I was right. I have a new project to work on and a phone call to return. Guess I’ll have to read those newsletters later, whenever that is…

I’m so far behind on reading my blogs I might as well clear out the aggregator and start over. When I worry about what I may have missed in unread blog posts, I try to tell myself if it were that important, I’d find time to read them every day. Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially when the voice mail and email inboxes are full to bursting.

In addition to emails, voice mails, and newsletters, I tried desperately to keep up with new projects today by writing them down on a pad of paper. It was a great idea– until I remembered I had several pads of paper scattered about my desktop with lots of old projects written on them. Guess it’s time to consolidate them on one large piece of paper and figure out which ones need to be done first.

I’ve tried putting new projects or tasks into Microsoft Outlook’s tasks and assigning due dates, reminders, and priorities. But they only end up annoying me when the reminder pops up and I don’t have time to do the task or project right then, usually because something else has come up. I know I can change the reminder or even dismiss it. I can also ignore it and have the software tell me how many hours, days, or even weeks I’ve been ignoring it. There’s nothing like being reminded you’re really far behind on your to-do list–and like a true packrat, I can accumulate overdue reminders like nobody else.

 

May 4, 2008

Overwhelmed!

Posted in Uncategorized tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 10:39 pm by Andrea Kappler

If anyone was following this blog regularly, you’ve probably wondered what happened to me or maybe even given up reading it. If you were disappointed in my poor performance, you have my sincerest apologies. It’s just that I’ve been super-busy lately. I’ve started at least 5 different posts, but have been unable to perfect and publish any of them. So rather than finish writing even one of them, my solution is to write a new one! What else would a packrat do? If I can’t accumulate unwritten blog posts, then I’m not a true packrat.

One of the things that has overwhelmed me lately is my accumulation of new blog subscriptions. For the longest time, I had a manageable collection of blogs to read– somewhere around 65. But in the course of keeping up with my professional readings, I’ve discovered more blogs and subscribed to them. Being the packrat that I am, the number quickly jumped to 92 (I just added another today http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/). I don’t want the number to rise any higher, so I need to review the list and prune the deadwood. (I also need to learn how to speed read.)

Before I pruned any blogs from my reader, I decided to read through some of them. Of course, I didn’t get very far before finding this post from Steve Rubel about attention crash and managing email, blogs, and everything else our in digital world. He referred to Inbox Zero, which offers tips on keeping your email inbox empty. A colleague of mine already recommended this same link to me, but I’ve failed to spend enough time investigating or implementing it. Maybe it’s because my own inbox is so overwhelmingly stuffed that I feel there’s no hope for ever getting it to zero. Inbox Zero could more accurately refer to my attention span, which is hovering around zero these days.

Steve wrote about investing in search tools, although he didn’t mention a new tool called Twine, which I’ve signed up to beta test. Twine is a semantic web application that’s supposed to tie everything together, meaning you tell it what you’re interested in and it searches the Web for that information. It can make recommendations and even link you up with like-minded people who share the same interests.

Steve’s blog also mentioned the book The 4-hour workweek by Timothy Ferriss. I just got a copy from my library over the weekend, so I have yet to read it. Hopefully I can work it into my piles of nonfiction books awaiting me on my hope chest at home (how appropriate!– they’re hoping to be read). When I figure out Twine and read Tim’s book, I’ll let you know if either of them are useful, whether or not you’re a packrat.