What To Do When There's Too Much To Do (9 page)

G—Garbage-free.
If you use a planner, binder, or notebook, what would happen if you picked it up and shook it? Would you witness a blizzard of falling papers? Any loose papers you're working with should go in a file folder or your briefcase. Remember to reduce, reduce, and reduce again! Trim your system down to the categories you intend to use. Just because you have apps on your phone or an extra tab in your planner doesn't mean you actually have to use them. Move, remove, or convert them to some other use. Even handheld users who don't use them consistently end up with scraps of paper everywhere.

Does your time management system meet the HUG criteria? No? Keep tweaking it until you discover your best fit! If it does cover these three bases and it works for you, then you have the right personal time management system in place. If it frustrates you in some way, continue to make adjustments. Don't feel pressured to move to a particular system if it's a poor fit to your personality, or isn't suited to your work and life situation. I've known people who were entirely paperless who went back to paper to a limited extent, because they discovered they were more organized with paper than without it.

Test your personal time management system for HUGability. It needs to be Handy, Usable, and Garbage-free.

In just about any office job, you encounter a constant flood of new information. You have no choice but to take it all in and process it one way or another—lest you drown in it. Some of this information will come to you automatically; some you'll have to dig up yourself. However we acquire it, we all must filter, process, think about, focus on, reference, and internalize the information, incorporating it into our organizational systems, processes, and daily routine as appropriate.

As you do so, keep these six simple rules in mind:

1.
The Superglue Rule.
The very first time you touch an item, pretend it's stuck to your hand (as in paper) or your eyes (as in e-mail) or your ear (as in voicemail). You can't put it down until you've made a decision (next step).

2.
The Decisiveness Rule.
Decide right away what to do with the item. Any decision is better than no decision. Indecision actually causes clutter! Luckily, there are only six potential decisions, which I'll outline in the upcoming 6-D System.

3.
The Start-to-Finish Rule.
Don't just decide what to do with an item—do it! This doesn't necessarily mean you'll complete the item, because doing it later is actually a decision. Every decision has an “end” point, so make sure you don't stop it halfway through the process. Incompletions are very stressful (ever had a “half-organized” closet?).

4.
The Three-Minute Rule.
If you can easily process a piece of information in three minutes or less, get it done right then and off your plate before moving to the next item.

5.
The Empty Inbox Rule.
Don't use your inbox as a to-do list or filing system. Once you get past a screen shot or so, you have to start scrolling and re-reading. You must pull the action out of each item, or you'll have random due dates mixed together and won't know when to begin what. Instead, process every single piece of incoming information
and get it out of the inbox and into the right location (more on this to come).

6.
The Discipline Rule.
Spend a few minutes handling and organizing your new information every day. Then you won't have to stay late or come in on a Saturday just to clean up your backlog.

Clearly, some of these rules are interrelated, and how you use one is likely to influence how you use others. Now you have a simple set of principles to guide your actions, so let's take a look at handling the flow of incoming information.

I've taught my 6-D Information Management System since the 1990s (lots of people have created takeoffs on this system). I call it the 6-D System because it's based on six decisions, all beginning with the letter “D.” You can use the system to process and fine-tune
any
type of information. In this section, we'll first review the general meaning for each “D,” and then we'll apply the decisions to the three most common media in the modern workplace: paper, e-mail, and voicemail.

1.
Discard.
I've put this decision first, because whatever you don't get rid of, you'll have to work through your system. You'll benefit from getting rid of as much as possible at the outset. Don't think, “I might need this again someday.” Instead, ask yourself, “Why should I keep this?” Have a good reason to keep something. Otherwise, take a deep breath and toss it!

2.
Delegate.
If you can't throw something away, perhaps you can give it away to someone else. This doesn't always mean delegation in a formal sense, if the person doesn't work for you. In fact, you may actually be the one to whom work is delegated. So sometimes you could “Discuss” the issue
(that might be another good “D” here), or you could “Distribute” it. The goal is to transfer it from your sphere of control to someone else's.

3.
Do.
The item requires your personal action, and you can handle it right then.

4.
Date.
There's future action required, but you can't do it now. Some people have tried to use the words “Delay” or “Defer” in this instance, but I caution against doing so, because those terms don't specify how long you're delaying it. (This would be like having a giant folder called “Pending” or “Waiting on.”) Instead of continually scanning a list or pile over and over again, be specific with this step and assign a date you need to see, think about, or otherwise handle the item again.

5.
Drawer.
These items need to be filed in a drawer for future reference. No action is required, but you can't toss it either. You might want to access it again just in case, so you should save it.

6.
Deter.
Stop the information from ever coming across your desk or landing in one of your inboxes again. You're not merely throwing it away; you're making sure you've eliminated the possibility it will come back to you. You may have to take some extra steps to make sure you stop these items in their tracks.

And that's it! Those are the six decisions you use to process any piece of information. Now, let's review the equivalent action steps and apply the 6 Ds to the three primary types of information entering your system: paper, e-mail, and voicemail.

Although I've designed the 6-D System specifically for handling information, you can also apply the general concepts more broadly to task triage, per
Chapter 1
.

Let's discuss applying each decision to a hardcopy piece of paper (regular mail, interoffice mail, printed Internet information, printed e-mail, etc.). Referring to the Ds above, the equivalent action steps would be:

1. Throw it away, recycle it, or shred confidential documents. You're done! You followed the Start-to-Finish Rule: You reviewed it, made a decision, and took action.

2. Get the paper into the hands of another person. What are the options for doing this? If you're both in the same building, you might route it to them through interoffice mail or hand-deliver it. For people located elsewhere, you could scan and e-mail the paper, or fax it as appropriate. You might also snail-mail or FedEx it to them. Remember the Superglue Rule: While it's in your hand, consider it stuck to you. You can't un-stick it until you make a decision about what to do it with it. Then once you decide to send it to someone else, don't put it down and go on to the next thing until it's in an “Out” box. Whatever it takes, make sure each piece has moved through your system before going on to the next item.

3. If you can't throw away the paper or give it to someone else, go ahead and Do it. The very next question you have to ask yourself is, “Can I do this in three minutes or less?” If the answer is yes, then, per the Three-Minute Rule, respond to the request right away (check this box, sign here, comment here, review this, etc.). Move small tasks out of your office immediately before they accumulate. It's more efficient to do these immediately than to put them down and have to pick them up and reread them again. Get used to completing quick things without delay.

4. If you can't do it now, ask yourself, “When do I need to see this again?” and file it in the appropriate Tickler file folder, where it will magically pop up again on that date.

5. Integrate reference papers into your regular filing system. If it doesn't require any action, put it in a “to be filed” bin or immediately file it in the appropriate physical file (client, project, reference, idea, subject, etc.) if you prefer.

6. To prevent a piece of paper from coming back again, you have to remove yourself from the distribution list. Unsubscribe or, as appropriate, tell the person sending you the item you're no longer on the team or committee, and therefore don't need to receive that information anymore. If you receive mail for someone who's no longer there, just write on the outside “No longer here” and put it in the outbound mail.

Now let's apply the same Ds to a voicemail message on your office or cell phone. Many people listening to voicemail hit “Save” too often—and soon they have many, many saved voicemails. Instead, process the voicemail through the 6-D system. The very first time you listen to it, it's stuck to your ear, so focus on making a decision to get it out of your voice-mail inbox.

1. Once you've listened to the voicemail, just delete it.

2. Forward the voicemail to another person and ask that person to respond. If you're expecting an answer, make sure to indicate in your time management system you left the person a message. I tag my calls on my HIT list with an “M” if I left a message. In your weekly review, you'll see who didn't get back to you with an answer. You can also do this with a Reminder on an Outlook Task.

3. If you can respond right away, leave an answer in that person's voicemail or call them back.

4. If you need to call someone back but can't do it immediately, don't just hit Save! To date a voicemail, you could write a note and phone number on your HIT list and delete the voicemail. You could create an electronic Task.
You might type the message into your CRM database and schedule a return call. You might flag the person in your Contacts with a reminder set for when to call back. You might have a spiral notebook you use just for phone calls. You could write a note and file it in your Tickler file. You might type into an iPad or Droid app. Anything is better than using sticky notes! The point is to get the message off your voicemail and decide on a consistent method for recording calls in one place.

5. If someone leaves you information on your voicemail that you need to save, don't just save the message. Instead, transcribe it, enter it in your CRM, or create a Journal entry in Outlook, tagged to the correct Contact. Bottom line: Get it off the voicemail and into your trusted retrieval method for historical communications.

6. How do you keep people from leaving you voicemails? I like to change my outgoing greeting when I'm out of the office to something like, “I'm not in the office right now. For immediate assistance …” and then give them a way to get out of the voicemail system, such as hitting 0 and dialing 2 to be transferred to another person. Or I suggest they e-mail instead. People want to have good service even when you're not there. Some may still leave voicemails, but you'll receive fewer than you would have with a standard out-of-office message.

Undoubtedly, your e-mail is probably the biggest organizational challenge you deal with today. Make no mistake: E-mail actually
is
your work, because all those messages represent something you need to do and decisions you need to make. But many people are paralyzed by the sheer volume of messages or don't have a systematic way of pulling action from e-mail. So most people leave messages in their inboxes to languish and get buried by the onslaught of new incoming e-mails.