When Google unveiled Buzz a few weeks ago (and Wave a couple of months before that), it got me to thinking about how the emergence of each new technology often means an associated emergence of a new inbox.

These new inboxes now can sometimes creep up without us noticing right away. For example, when I got an iPhone in 2007, texting suddenly became a major new source of input. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a self-professed “Geek Girl” — it’s not like I didn’t have a phone capable of texting before 2007. I did. But, it was rather clunky and I didn’t use it often. Most people I knew didn’t use it much (I’m a Gen Xer, so we don’t text as profusely as those Gen Y youngins do). Once I got an iPhone, texting was suddenly dead simple. Once my PARENTS got iPhones…good night. Suddenly I was getting texts from my Baby Boomer dad (“Hi, honey!” “Did you get that?” “Is this working?”)

As part of one’s GTD Weekly review, it can be useful to also monitor the landscape for new collection areas that may have cropped up. Because I work in the internet technology realm, I need to do this more often than others (like, every few weeks). For muggles, quarterly or even annually may be enough. Below is a list of new collection areas to watch out for. In an upcoming Connect webinar I’ll share some of my strategies for dealing with them, and talk about some inboxes I’m struggling with right now.

Digital Inboxes
- Email
- Text Messages
- Instant Messages
- Blog Comments: your own blog, blogs you contribute to, or posts you are monitoring
- Twitter: people you are following, @replies, direct messages
- Yammer: Yammer is a private version of Twitter, often used inside companies. (My company is experimenting with this right now.)
- Social Bookmarking: e.g. Delicious
- RSS Feeds
- LinkedIn: Updates, Answers, Group discussions
- Facebook: Friends you are following, Comments, Messages
- Discussion Boards and Forums
- Google Wave: My brain is melting…
- Google Buzz: My head has exploded.

Goal
My goal is to have as many collection areas as I need, but no more.

Strategies
My strategy is to aggregate as many inputs into my email inbox as possible. I do this for a few reasons: 1. it simplifies processing and tracking because I’m already in the habit of checking and emptying that inbox regularly (I aim for Inbox 0 once a day) and 2. budgers piss me off.

Budgers
One of my issues with all these new inboxes cropping up is that it reminds me of standing in a long line at a store when the phone rings. How the store handles the call says a lot. If they deal with the call while everyone else waits, it makes you think — damn, I wish I could have called. I’d be at the front of this line! If they put them on hold, and deal with them as if they *were* in line — it somehow feels better. More fair.

My attention is the same way. Every one of the inboxes I listed above is constantly jostling with the others to get my attention. Each one thinks they’re more important than the others. They all try to budge in front of the others in line. All the time. When someone instant messages me, I have to get back to them this instant, right?! Wrong.

I try to be careful about who and what I allow to budge in line for my attention. Letting some things budge isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bad thing if I’m allowing myself to get distracted by stuff that I don’t want to be distracted by. If I’m letting my brain be led around on a leash that I’m not controlling, how do I know it falls in line with any of my own projects and goals?

It’s basically a “You kids get off my lawn!!!” approach.

Approach
Aggregating everything into email is not for everyone; I have co-workers who think I’m insane. But, I don’t want to have to remember to go to 10 different places to see if there’s anything I need to deal with. I like launching Mail and knowing that 90% of what I need to deal with is represented there. For some people, this would be crazy-making, but I’ve gotten used to receiving massive amounts of email so it doesn’t stress me out anymore. I’ve also gotten good at processing email very, very quickly. In my experience, this is not so much about learning keyboard shortcuts or being a fast reader as it is about making decisions quickly. Over time, I’ve practiced how to decide what to do about things in my inboxes very quickly.

I’ve added a question to the very end of my weekly review. I don’t look at it every week, but every so often I do: “Are there any new sources of input that have cropped up? Any new “inboxes”? How are you handling and managing those inputs?”

Meghan Wilker is a regular community contributor to GTD Times.  She’s also been featured in David Allen’s In Conversation series on GTD Connect, spotlighting some of the most fascinating people in our network of GTD’ers around the world.

Gmail Waiting For filter:

1. Create a label called @Waiting For if you don’t have one already
2. Go to Settings (top right corner), click on Filters tab
3. Click Create a New Filter
4. Add your email address to the From field
5. Add a unique keyword, such as *wf, in the Has the Words field
6. Click Next step
7. Check off Skip the Inbox” and “Apply the Label: @Waiting For”
8. Click Create Filter

Test it out by sending yourself a test message and put your unique code somewhere in the body of the message. What this will do is save you from having to cc: yourself (and then process it again out of In) or dig through Sent mail to get the stuff that you’re waiting on from someone else. A copy of your email will automatically get filed under your @Waiting For label.

Outlook Waiting For rule:

Here is how to create a very handy rule in Outlook for filing sent emails directly into a Waiting For email folder.

1. Create a new email folder (Ctrl+Shift+E) and name it @Waiting For.
The @ symbol will make it appear under your Inbox.
2. Click on Tools > Rules and Alerts.
3. Click the New Rule button.
4. At the top of the next box, select Start from a blank rule.
5. Highlight Check messages after sending, then click Next.
6. Check off With specific words in the body. Then click on where specific words is underlined and choose a unique keyword for your rule, such as *wf*. Click Add, then OK, then Next.
7. Check off Move a copy to the specified folder. Then click on the where specific Folder is underlined and choose the @Waiting For folder.
8. Click Finish.

Try it out by sending a test message to yourself and typing *wf* in the body of the email somewhere, such as under your signature file. It should send a copy of the email to your @Waiting for folder.  What this rule does is eliminate the step of having to CC: yourself or dig through your Sent file to find emails that you are waiting for a response.

I had a funny and rewarding GTD experience that I thought was worth sharing.

Today I found a piece of paper crumpled up inside of my vest pocket.  A pocket I use only for my voice-recorder and not for hand written notes.  The note was labeled as follows…

08-14-09
Patty
<her phone number>
BCV Phone
Exchange Access

I stared at that piece of paper during a freak lull in traffic, wondering what in Crom’s name it meant.  Back at the office I called Patty and confessed “I dropped the ball on something but I can’t even recall what it was.  Can you help me interpret this note?”  It turns out that I had actually handled the issue some time ago.  She was very happy that I called to make certain it had been handled, though.  We both had a good laugh about it.

This experienced proved to me how absolutely essential it is that I train myself to use the correct collection buckets, otherwise information will not get into the GTD process flow to begin with.  If capture is not working then all the rest is useless.  Luckily I had trained myself well enough to put down the date, the person and the
phone number.  Otherwise I would have been lost and had no where to turn.

Cheers.

-JMC

If you have a GTD story, we’d love to hear from you. Send it along to editor@gtdtimes.com.

But, in the weeks since we talked, I paid more attention to how GTD factors into our family life and realized that — though they are quite young — there are elements of GTD that I am already teaching my kids.

Of the five levels of control in GTD (capturing, clarifying, organizing, reflecting, and engaging), most of what my kids are learning right now has to do with capturing, clarifying and organizing.

Capturing & Clarifying
My kids have a few inboxes that are specific to them. One is in my car: a plastic basket that sits between their car seats. Any books or toys that come into the car go in that basket (when they’re not in use).

Every couple of weeks, we empty it out and bring the stuff back into the house (or, in the case of rocks, sticks and other “treasures” — back into nature). This has two benefits:
1. It keeps mom happy because I don’t want to have the kind of car that looks like something exploded in the backseat.
2. It keeps the kids happy because if they get bored in the car, everything is within easy reach while I’m behind the wheel. And, there are far fewer cries of “I can’t find my [insert name of special toy you can't live without here]!”

The second inbox is in my daughter’s “office” [pictured]. My husband and I share a home office (one room, two workstations); along the wall opposite our workstations, we’ve set up an area where our daughter (and, eventually, our son) can “work” as well. There is a table with two chairs, a homemade bulletin board, and a tower of drawers that contain art supplies, paper, puzzles and toys. On top of that tower is an orange box with a lid. Every art project she brings home goes into that box (super special items get featured on the fridge first). When it fills up, we go through the box and decide which things to keep forever. Those items get moved to a different box inside the closet (her first reference folder, I guess!), and the others are laid to rest. (If this seems cruel, then you have no idea how many art projects kids generate; if I kept them all, I’d need a bigger house. There are also lots of great ideas on how to archive kids’ art over at ParentHacks.

Organizing
One of my favorite GTD mantras — and one that I think is well-suited to young children — is the idea that where something is should map to its importance to you. In mom-ese, that’s pronounced, “Put your toys away!”

I make it clear to my kids that putting stuff where it belongs is not just about being tidy, but also about ensuring that the things you enjoy don’t get broken, and that you can find them when you want them.

In practice, this means my daughter has lots of drawers and containers that belong to her and I try to make it as easy as possible to remember what goes where. She and I have decorated special “treasure boxes” to keep things in. Doll clothes are all visible in a clear plastic pouch that once held a bubble bath set and a collection of plastic animals are easily found inside a former Robeez shoe bag. (Clear plastic pouches are THE GREATEST. Toys are easy to find, and Al Gore pats you on the back for reusing something and reducing waste!). In the tower of drawers near her desk, she knows that crayons go in the top drawer. My daughter has learned that the fun is ruined if she’s ready to color and the crayons aren’t there.

In grownup terms, there is a tangible benefit to putting your stuff in a prescribed location.

Reflecting
While I don’t literally sit down and do a weekly review with my kids, we — as a family — have a habit of picking up the house on Sundays. In effect, this is a weekly review for our family. We clean up the stuff that’s gone astray as we’ve rocked through another week. It prepares us for the week ahead.  We make sure all the laundry is done and ready for Monday morning. We check the calendar and the notes from daycare to make sure we’re bringing diapers and extra clothes when needed. We pick things up and ask, “What is this? Where does it belong?” and put them away. Monday morning is a clean slate.

While none of these ideas are unique to GTD, they are developing a base set of skills that will help my kids practice GTD when they are older. Importantly, they are learning some of the “why” behind them. Why do we keep our stuff organized? Because we can find it when we want it, and the things that are meaningful to us are less likely to get wrecked.

So, here’s the thing: I’m no Mommy Dearest. My kids’ desk doesn’t look like this every day of the week. It’s important for kids — and grownups — to have the freedom to make a big, fat mess. But, as the days of the week go by, and this little table gets covered with art projects and dinosaurs and doo-dads, I don’t sweat it. I know that come Sunday we’ll pick it all up and start again. And my daughter knows that all her special things have a place where they are safe.

The last, and most important piece of GTD that I hope my kids are picking up is that the best thing about keeping track of everything that you need to do is feeling good about deciding to not do any of it. On Father’s Day this year, I could tell that what my husband really wanted to do was hang around and read books. My best memory of that day is all four of us lounging in bed with a book (the nine-month-old was chewing on his, but he did have one!). There we were, doing nothing — and knowing that was the best possible thing to do.

Meghan Wilker is a regular contributor to GTD Times.  She is Managing Director at Clockwork Active Media Systems, a Minneapolis-based web and application development company. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and their two children. Meghan discovered GTD four years ago, when she read Getting Things Done for the first time. She’s been honing her GTD skills ever since. Read how she hacked Mail & iCal for her GTD system.

In this 35 minute podcast they talk about:

• Some of their favorite tools for capturing anywhere, anytime
• The essential tools for work and home spaces
• What makes or breaks a good collection tool?
• The essential “red folder“
• Collect versus organize and why most people don’t get the difference
• Why an empty inbox reduces interruptions
• What’s it like to work in a GTD culture?

Listen now>>>

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There are two things I would look at:  Speed + Input

One angle to consider is to get really good and faster at processing.  Speed will be required when you’re getting tons of volume every day if you hope to get through it all without it consuming your entire day.

I think it’s also helpful to look at what you’re getting with a fresh eye, now and again.  Do you need to be getting everything you’re getting?

If you’re not sure, climb up the GTD Horizons of Focus, especially to the 20,000 level.  Is the input you’re collecting by email relevant to your current Areas of Focus and Responsibilities? If not, what can you renegotiate around any of that?  (There is an implicit agreement with the email you allow in.  Don’t allow in what you don’t want to give a piece of your attention to.)

For example:

• Get off email groups that don’t relate to your job, personal life or current interests.
• Even Junk takes time to process, so do what you can do eliminate mail that takes your attention that way. If unsubscribing is validating the email with the spammer, setup some smart mail rules for sending this stuff to a Junk or Trash folder.
• Unsubscribe from mailing lists that you don’t read anyway. Be honest with yourself on this. There’s a whole lot of value-add reading we all could be reading to improve our life, job, focus etc., that we don’t.
• Setup a “nice to read” folder to quickly triage the newsstand type items that you could read, or not. Just be vigilant in cleaning it out, like you would magazines on your table, when they expire in relevance and interest.  Emails have a shelf life, so be careful with this one.

If you are a GTD Connect member, there’s a great 2-minute video from David Allen on dealing with email that talks about all this in a really succinct and humorous way.

For many years I did GTD classes for a high-tech company in Silicon Valley where their engineers were getting close to 800 emails a day. That kind of volume takes some mastery to stay on top of, for sure.  So I hear you Gil when it seems daunting to deal with the volume that comes in for you.  I hope these tips give you something to work with.

The good news with the GTD model is that the thought process is the same no matter how something comes in (email, paper etc.) But since email plagues so many people, we’ll use that for our example.

1. Open a new email.

2. Ask yourself, “What is it?” and “Is it actionable?”

3.  If it’s NOT Actionable, then delete it, store it in a Reference email folder, or incubate it on Someday/Maybe if you think you’ll have action with it in the future.

4.  If it IS Actionable and will take you multiple steps to complete, ask yourself, “What’s my desired outcome?” Track that outcome on a Projects list.

5.  Now ask yourself, “What’s my next action?” Then you’ve got 3 choices:

1. Do it now (if it will take less than 2 minutes)
2. Delegate it now (if someone else can do it, track on Waiting For if you need to)
3. Defer it to a Next Action list or folder (if it will take longer than 2 minutes and store that email in a place (other than “In”) you know you can easily get back to when you need to take action.)

If it’s got multiple next actions that can be done simultaneously, track each one of those. If you have “future actions” or dependencies, and this is a project, those can be stored with your project plans.