Some answers to "Should I keep it?" when filing

In To save or not to save Kelly Forrister provides two questions that answer the question of whether to keep something or not:

• How hard would it be to get the information again if I needed to?
  
• When's the last time I looked at this?

Her questions reminded me of something more general that I came across when reviewing the Paper Tiger filing system (esp. the tutorial). When answering the question Should I keep it?, the author notes that 80% of what we keep, we don't use, and that 40% of most inboxes can be tossed. I don't know where she gets the numbers, but she does go on to give these great tips for deciding to keep something:

• Does this piece of paper require any action?
  
• Is this paper recent enough to be useful? (Often it's better to track who has it, rather than keeping a copy.)
  
• Would it be be difficult to get this piece of paper again?
  
• Are there any tax or legal implications? (Get good council regarding keeping these.)
  
• Can you identify a specific use for this piece of paper? ("Just in case" is not specific enough.)
  
• What's the worst possible scenario if you toss this? (Can you live with the answer?)

Clearly some of these overlap with David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology (the discipline I primarily use to keep my life sane), but it's a nice list to share with people when they don't have the time or inclination to adopt Allen's system 100%. I do have some serious issues the the Paper Tiger approach (for example, having to go to the computer every time you want to file anything, which I think leads to stacking), but I'll write about that in a bit.

We get another perspective from Marilyn Paul's great book It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys: The Seven-Step Path to Becoming Truly Organized. In her section on keeping things, she says to keep things that:

• you use regularly,
  
• you require for bookkeeping,
  
• you love or think are beautiful, or
  
• have deep meaning for you

Do you have any favorite guidelines for deciding when to keep something?

The most important networking question

Because I'm investigating the field of productivity consulting, I've been working on expanding my people network (both regionally and on-line), and I've been learning the joys and challenges of doing so. By nature I'm more of a maven than a connector (the terms are from Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, summarized here), but I do love being with people who are intelligent, fun, and considerate.

One of the best tips I've encountered is from the book Networking - The great new way for women to get ahead by Mary Scott Welch. Since meeting new people is the point (and there are many reasons why this is important - information, referrals, feedback, etc. - check out the book) the most important question is (drumroll please):

"Can you think of anyone else I might talk to about this?"

In other words, grow it. (I bring this up because it's the one question I didn't ask when meeting with someone last week.) Here are some other great tips from the book:

• How to introduce yourself: "I'm calling at the suggestion of ____, who thought you might be willing to talk ..." or "... do you have time to ____?"
  
• What to say: Who you are, what you do (have 25 word spiel ready), and what you're looking for. And find out same about them.
  
• You don't have to like people you network with, it just has to be a win-win for you both.
  
• Check-in regularly to say hi, tell them what you've been doing, and to make appointments (e.g., lunch or dinner). You don't need a special reason to call.

I've had some wonderful results from networking, including being introduced to others with great ideas, wisdom, and experience in the area I'm investigating. And of course blogging (esp. commenting on others' posts) is a great way to connect with like-minded people. Very cool!


Resources

I think the book is out of print, but there are used copies available. There are also many current books on the topic - following are some that are popular at Amazon, but I'd love to hear some personal recommendations:

• Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty : The Only Networking Book You'll Ever Need
  
• Nonstop Networking: How to Improve Your Life, Luck, and Career
  
• Masters of Networking
  
• Power Networking Second Edition : 59 Secrets for Personal & Professional Success
  
• Breakthrough Networking: Building Relationships That Last
  
• The Networking Survival Guide: Get the Success You Want By Tapping Into the People You Know

Use the STING method to stop procrastinating

Welcome! If you like this article, why not subscribe by RSS or email, sign up for my free monthly "IdeaLab" newsletter (use the form on my main page, or simply email thinktrylearn@aweber.com), or check out my popular products like Where the !@#% did my day go? The ultimate guide to making every day a great workday. Cheers, matt

There's been a number of writings on overcoming procrastination, with a tidy summary at Recap: Turning procrastination into action. However, one technique that I hadn't heard of was presented last week during an on-campus seminar ("Developing organization skills to be more effective in the workplace"). It's called the "STING" method of addressing procrastination, and it's an acronym that stands for:

S - Select one task.
T - Time yourself.
I - Ignore everything else.
N - No breaks.
G - Give yourself a reward.

In my case I applied it to a programming task that I've been avoiding for almost two months. I set the timer for one hour (3 x 20 minute increments worked well), quit my email program and browser, and closed my office door. The beauty of it is ... it worked! Friday and today I was able to put in enough hours to get that piece working (using Test-driven development, of course). Actually, it was better than that - I was able to get enough momentum to keep going a while; very satisfying. Oh, the reward? Chocolate! (Lately I've been enjoying Lake Champlain's Small World Chocolates - nothing like their usual chocolate, by the way.)

References

Surprisingly, the only reference to this I could find on-line was It's All about Mothers and Babies, where they provide a bit more detail:

• Select one task you've been putting off. Break it down to just one small piece if it's complicated. For instance, if the task is cleaning the kitchen, reorganizing a drawer is just one piece of the larger task.
• Time yourself. Use a kitchen timer so you don't have to watch the clock and give the task one full hour. Children might need to reduce that time to just 10 or 15 minutes.
• Ignore everything else that needs to be done.
• No breaks allowed.
• Give yourself a reward when the task is completed.

On saying yes - 3 possibilities: Always yes, always no, or only when you really want to

On the topic of when to make a commitment, I recently came across two great perspectives. First, Bert Webb post Say Yes More talks about Danny Wallace's book Yes Man, his journal of saying "yes" to everything for a year (the book went straight onto my Amazon wish list). This is a wild example of the idea of using an extreme to make a point, or to learn something, and as a person who's learning the "Joy of yes," it's a great data point. Of course the other extreme is always saying "no," something that is satirized in the standard bureaucratic joke about everyone having only the power to say no, which results in nothing getting done.

Between these two strategies is the rational approach talked about in Marilyn Paul's book It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys (which I found full of good ideas) - She has five questions to ask when thinking about saying "yes":

• Does it give me energy?
  
• Am I excited about doing it?
  
• Does it bring me joy?
  
• Does it connect me to the people I care most about?
  
• Does it help me manifest my most valued goals?

I think this is a great list because a) it's comprehensive, b) all the questions are positive, and c) it makes explicit the process of committing to something. The bottom line? Whether I pick an extreme or the middle road, I'm increasingly becoming aware of the value of being conscious about each of my commitments. I figure I have only a fixed amount of time left in the world (I just don't know how much!), so I want to be conscious about how I spend my precious minutes. As the saying goes, you can't actually manage time, you can only manage how you use it. Hopefully Paul's tests will help me get better at this.

My GTD collection points - guided tour, with pictures

In GTD for the overworked graphic designer the author talks about having too many in-baskets, and the resulting problem of loosing important papers (meeting notes, etc.) He (or she) rightly hits on the solution of reducing the number of in-baskets, and of centralizing them. As it turns out, I had a similar problem when I was implementing GTD, mostly because I have two offices, I bike between them, and I have notes coming in from lots of sources. By popular request, what follows is a detailed tour of my collection points and how they're used.

I have four collection points, one of which is the "real" (or final) one, and the other three are for convenience of access during the day:

• First is my "Portable In-Basket" file folder that I carry in my backpack everywhere I go. How it's used: If I'm on-campus (or away from home) I stick everything into the folder, including memos, printed emails, and snail mail from my work mailbox. To make it stand out (and thus to make easy filing in it), I use a special non-manila color for this folder, an idea shamelessly stolen from David Allen during his GTD | The RoadMap seminar. In the following picture it's one of the mauve folders in the portable file carrier open on the left:
  
  
  
• Second, at home we all have our own mail slots, located in the front hall. These are used both for snail mail arriving at the house (just outside the front door), and for notes such as phone messages, "We're at the library," etc. How it's used: Anyone picking up the mail files each person's stuff in her in-basket. Ditto for messages, rent checks, etc. (NB: Having in-baskets for each person - including my five year old daughter - is a great idea, and is one that David Allen strongly encourages; I agree, but there are consequences - see the note below.) The following photo shows our wonderful stack of in-baskets:
  
  
  (And no, mine is not that overflowing one.)
  
• Third, I include my wallet because I recently realized that it functions as a kind of specialized in-basket, one for financial receipts, including ATM statements, VISA receipts, and shopping receipts that were paid by check. How it's used: When I participate in any financial transaction that leaves a paper trail, I put the receipt in my wallet. (Sorry, no wallet picture; I have to draw the line somewhere.)
  
• Finally, my "real" in-basket is at my home office, and is the top shelf of a set of five metal stacking shelves, which you can see in the upper right corner of the first picture. (FYI the rest of the shelves read, from top to bottom: Waiting For, Action Support, Current Projects, and Mary Receipts.) Everything from the other collection points goes here whenever I process, i.e., every day or two. How it's used: It functions as the primary collection point (see following text).

Overall, it's pretty straightforward: All my collection points funnel into the final "real" place, which is the only one I use during the GTD Process phase. (Recall Allen's five phases: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, and Do - available in his Advanced Workflow PDF.) I try to follow Allen's advice and process the items in the in-basket every 24 to 48 hours, applying his methodology (available in his GTD Workflow PDF) and creating/moving items into their respective organization "buckets." (See the periphery of the basic workflow diagram for the organization portion of his system.) The key points that making this work are: a) being clear about the small number of collection points, b) using them appropriately (i.e., with nothing on the kitchen table, in the car, etc.), and c) dumping them all into the final in-basket. Any thoughts?

Notes:

• Having separate in-baskets for every family member is great for me (a GTD practitioner) because I can simply drop notes, "you might want to read this" printouts, etc. into the appropriate person's basket. However, people not practicing a methodology like GTD might have a problem with this because their boxes fill up, oftentimes causing frustration. I tell them: a) as long as I can get it out of my head and to them, it doesn't matter what they do with it, and b) if they would like to hear more about GTD I'll gladly talk with them about it (heh heh).
  
• My wallet also functions as a specialized financial 'Action Support' folder, solely for checks to deposit. I don't know if this is S.O.P., but it works for me. However, it's important to note that the "deposit checks" Next Action is on my @errands list, i.e., I am not using the check itself as a reminder. (This can be a subtle point.)
  
• I also carry my "Ubiquitous Capture Tool" (UCT) with me at all times. In my case it is an "In-Basket" section of my planner (the first tabbed section), with blank sheets for taking notes when I don't have the time or resources to process them at the moment they appear. (Interested parties can get more detail, with pictures, in my post Fare thee well Hipster PDA - I barely knew ye.)

Related posts:

• Actually getting things done with Getting Things Done! Surprises and learnings from my implementation.
  
• Dealing with Meeting Notes - GTD to the Rescue!