Remo's Blog » getting things done

Self-Organisation for Effectiveness

Remo Uherek — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:12:32 +0000

Important lessons:

Get things out of your head into your inbox! Then process your inbox into projects and process every project into actionable items. I’ve done this for 8 months now and it works very well!
Focus on one thing. Focus on the next action, i.e. the next actionable step towards completion of your project (e.g. getting the vacuum cleaner out of the closet comes before vacuum cleaning!)
Organize your actionable items by context. This is a very important. There are things that you can only do in a certain context. Be it at home, at the office, online, offline, at the grocery store, at amazon.com, at the train station etc. E.g. I have a list in my Treo with items for my next grocery store purchase. Every time something in the fridge is missing I put it into my Treo. Then when I go to the grocery store I have a perfect tobuy list that is going to fill for sure my fridge and freezer. Same thing with amazon.com.
Start your work-day with a important task (not email). I don’t do that yet, but I only spend 5-10 min on my email, because I only process my inbox to zero and come back later for my important @action emails.
Practice discipline and balance. For me thats 1-2 sports trainings per week.
Fight procrastination. Always reflect on yourself. Be aware of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. I you find yourself procrastinating, review the phrasing of your actionable items for the project and check if they are really actionable. E.g. since June 22 I’m fighting with vacuum cleaning. The paper only says “vacuum cleaning”, but it really should say “get vacuum cleaner of of the closet” ;-).
Avoid interruptions. Turn off your Skype, IM and maybe even Cell when doing important tasks. Interruptions are a killer. I’m almost never online on Skype or IM. I hate those things since many years! ;-)

How I got my E-mails DONE in Three Simple Steps!

Remo Uherek — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:57:35 +0000

Preface
Until November 2007 my e-mail-handling was a MESS! My inbox was full of JUNK and I had no SYSTEM. So basically I started hating e-mail. But then on my trip to Silicon Valley I finally read David Allen‘s Getting Things Done and things started changing. I’m using the system for almost 4 months now and it works TREMENDOUSLY well, meaning that my productivity and responsiveness has increased significantly.

Step 1: Get yourself a Gmail account

Gmail is my primary email-software. I’ve centralized all emails in gmail and I have one private and one professional account. I’m using Gmail primarily for over 2 years now and I’m very happy.

Step 2: Prepare 3 simple labels/folders

That’s all you need. Trust me!

Step 3: Process your STUFF every day!
Go to your inbox, pick one email at a time and decide among the following options:
a) If you can answer within 2 minutes, answer now. If you don’t have 2 minutes, label it @ACTION.
b) If you can’t answer within 2 minutes, choose @ACTION or @SOMEDAY/MAYBE.
c) If it’s junk, archive or delete.
d) If it’s regulary junk, put up a filter.

If you write an email and know you will have to follow-up or need something back, then go to your Sent Mail and label it with @WAITING FOR.

Don’t forget to delegate. If something can be done by someone else more efficiently, then delegate it and label the Sent Mail with @WAITING FOR.

When you’re done processing your inbox, go to your three labels and review everything regularly to have a complete overview. Caution: Don’t forget to actually DO the emails in your @ACTION box!!!

Very important: It’s crucial that you process 100% of your e-mails. Get your inbox to ZERO!!! I do it every day a couple of times and it feels GREAT!

DONE!

YES!!!

PS: As you may see in the last picture, I have also the labels @CONSULTING and @PARTNERSHIPS. These are individual modifications. Feel free to make adjustments according to your requirements. GTD is a very flexible system.

PPS: I recommend reading the GTD-book before starting. It will give you a better understanding of the whole system.

PPPS: I also have around 30 topical labels (e.g. Trigami Accounting) that enable me to find archived things faster.

PPPPS: I’m looking forward to get your feedback. If something is not clear yet, please ask questions and I will refine my posting to make it more usable and understandable.

PPPPPS: Please help to spread the word: DIGG This & YiGG This! (I have the feeling that this could become one of the most popular postings I’ve ever written – please help me get there ;-).

PPPPPPS: I also found a useful video called "Inbox Zero"

My Learnings in 2007

Remo Uherek — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:10:07 +0000

The biggest impact on my professional life had David Allen with Getting Things Done. In the past 2 months, I implemented this concept both in my personal and my professional life and am very happy with it. My mailboxes are constantly down to zero (although my @Action folder still has around 10 mails left) and all my "stuff" was processed into projects and references. I will continue to use and refine my individual version of this concept in 2008. There is still a lot of work to be done to be more efficient, but the foundation has definitely been laid in 2007.
I learned plenty of "entrepreneurial" things in Founders At Work. It’s an excellent book full of interviews with great people that I can recommend to every entrepreneur. There are hundreds of lessons in this book that you can learn from, but probably the most important lesson was: You have to do it your own way :-). The other learning was: Inspiration is great for motivation! Sometimes when I felt a little depressed and overwhelmed I read an interview in this book and it helped me a lot :-).
Learnings of (1) and (2): Books enrich your life in a great way. So don’t forget to have one or two books with you when you’re going to be on the train or a plane. I learn about most of the books that I read from blogs or magazines. I’m also looking forward to YOUR book recommendations – please leave a comment :-)
I fell in love with microblogging. I’ve just made a backup of all my 260 twitter-messages and this filled 11 full pages in my word-file (it’s also a great summary of the places I’ve been and the things I’ve done in 2007). Also make sure to subscribe to my twitter RSS-feed or to the free SMS-notifications. I mainly use twitter when I’m traveling, so please call or SMS me when I’m in your neighborhood.
Facebook surprised me. I’m not spending to much time on it since the business value is not very high yet, but it definitely has the potential to become my #1 social network. My #1 network is still XING, since my main interest right now is business.
Web Services can have a big impact on the personal life. I never watched more DVDs than in 2007, mainly because Exsila made it so easy and cheap.
I should have been more hospitable to some of my guests. Sometimes I was a little too self-involved. A big sorry & mea culpa!
I learned a LOT about Silicon Valley from Robert and my first trip. I learned that I don’t like 7th street/market street in SF, I learned that Palo Alto and Stanford are WONDERFUL and that it’s everywhere the same story: You have to FIGHT for it – no matter what it is!
I fell in love with Kiva and the idea of micro-investments.
I can’t keep up with all my RSS feeds. Its impossible! I accepted it. I’m no full-time blogger and I made my peace with it. I also apologize that this blog isn’t as frequently updated as it used to be. Same story here: I’m no full-time blogger and I made my peace with it.