A GTD’er wrote to us to ask what resources we have for helping her manage email. She wrote that email is “vying for top ten on my list of overwhelming.”  Here’s what one of our coaches shared:

There are a few excellent resources from the David Allen Company for applying the GTD methods to your email:

1. The GTD Setup Guides, specific to your tool, will cover the best practices of email.
2. There is a terrific free article called “Getting Email Under Control” that covers this issue as well.
3. Our GTD Connect online learning center also runs regular Webinar classes on topics such as email. There is a Webinar in the Archive Library called “Managing Email” that you should find useful. GTD Connect is $48 per month (cancel anytime) or $480 per year (one-year commitment.)
4. Our public GTD Mastering Workflow classes cover email best practices.  These one-day classes are a great way to learn all of the GTD essentials, including email.
5. There are loads of posts on GTD Times on the topic of email. Search on the keyword “email” or follow the tag.

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Dear David Allen: Where do you find the time to go through the hardest parts of your Inbox (I seem to have a lower layer that never gets finished — notes from meetings that need follow up that are important but not urgent etc.)?

DA: You’re trying to use your Inbox as your organizer, and that won’t work. You have to make the decision about the action step for each one of those, and organize the reminder of the action (if it’s longer than 2 minutes and can’t be delegated) in your system. That doesn’t take long.  Sounds like you’re avoiding the decision about what to do, or you don’t feel like you have any system better than your Inbox to sustain it.

One of the upcoming Webinars with David Allen on GTD Connect will be all about processing these kinds of things that seem to get stuck in the Inbox.  Thursday, March 11th @ 11am.  Free for GTD Connect members.

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Do YOU know the best practices of GTD?

Although they’ve been recorded for our GTD Connect online learning center, we have been posting the GTD Best Practices series to our free public podcast as well, for all to benefit from.  These informal podcasts are a great way to learn the essentials of GTD.  Here are the first 4 in the series.

Best Practices of Collect

Best Practices of Processing

Best Practices of Organize

Best Practices of Review

The final phase, the “Best Practices of Doing,” will be recorded in early March.  It will be released for GTD Connect members first, then put into the public podcast feed some time after that.  If you like these podcasts, GTD Connect has over 110 recordings like these, with more added every week, that you can play on the Connect site or  sync to iTunes.  It’s a great way to learn coaching tips from David and the staff, listen to interesting interviews with GTD’ers (Evan Taubenfeld being one of the recent ones), watch the “Slice of GTD Life” videos and more.  Good stuff.  Check out the free trial of GTD Connect.

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We are often asked, “Does GTD stick long-term?”  Here’s a great demonstration from GTD’er Steve Fogel:

It is a great thing to have this as the standard and comfort zone.  I would say in the last six months, I’ve consistently been here. What’s cool about GTD, is when you get here, it’s the starting point not the destination.  Can’t believe I’ve been using these tools since 1988.

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A new GTD’er wrote to David Allen and asked:

My dear husband thinks you keep your Inbox to zero by not posting your email address on the internet and/or by having assistants respond to your email.  I disagree. What say you?

David responded:

You keep your Inbox to zero by dealing with whatever shows up in there as rigorously as you do your answering machine at home.  The access you give the world to create input is up to you.  You have to decide what you want to invite/allow into your world, and match that with a behavior to process it at the same speed.

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One of the key buckets in your GTD system is Waiting For.  So what’s the biggest creator of Waiting For? Sent emails. Sure, you could slog through your Sent folder for which ones you actually need to make sure to track, but that’s like searching for a contact lens on the beach.  Good luck having that be a trusted and efficient system.  Another way to track Waiting For items is to create a simple rule or filter in your email program.   Here are those rules for two popular mail programs:   Gmail & Outlook.  If you’re on a different mail program, it’s usually pretty simple to set something like this up if it’s got a filter or rule function.  [Read more →]

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Q: I think email is becoming a two-headed monster. It is vital but more and more people ignore them, don’t read fully etc. How can we move forward with accomplishing goals in this environment? Are there ideas you can offer regarding effective corporate communications and task handoffs?

David Allen’s answer: Essentially email is no different than paper or verbal communications, with the same weaknesses if things are unfocused, unclear, and/or unnecessary. Because of its accessibility e-mail has just magnified those problems when those standards in communication are allowed. The key is [Read more →]

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The better you are at using a tool, and the more you love the tools you use, the more effective they will be for your GTD system.  David Allen has said time and time again, learn at least the basic speed keys for the tools you use the most, so the tool is not slowing you down.

For those of you on Gmail, here’s a handy guide from Google for getting the most out of Gmail.  A few years ago, (before Tasks was added to Gmail), our coaches were working quite a bit with a client on Gmail and wrote this free article on using Gmail as a list manager.  For all of the GTD Setup Guides, click here.

One of the best tricks for enhancing your personal productivity is having organizing tools that you love to use. – David Allen

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