One of the things I’m hoping to do in this coming year is get real help with my e-mail. It’s tricky, because e-mail is so varied, and it’s not easy for people to know what to answer for mine. Emmanuel Henderson and I have a plan — we’re going to spend an hour a few days / week for the next month just doing it together, and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to figure out how he can at least handle some of it, so I’m not so behind all the time.
I was reading an article recently about productivity and e-mail, and one thing they pointed out that e-mail is TERRIBLE in terms of switching cost — you’re bouncing from one project to another with each new e-mail, and you can’t go deep, so it ends up taking much more time and mental energy than it would if it were bunched.
I want to get back to using Boomerang for Gmail more efficiently. I’m not quite sure the right approach, but maybe something like this:
– I already have Serendib House work concentrated on Tuesdays, SLF work on Thursdays this semester. Teaching MWF.
– Given that, I could have Emmanuel go through the last hundred messages and simply boomerang everything academic to come back on Monday, everything Serendib to come back on Tuesday, and everything SLF to come back on Thursday.
I feel a little nervous about doing that, because what if there’s something urgent that needs a quicker response? But he’s smart, I should just trust him to flag things that are urgent, right? He should just boomerang away things that can wait a week.
Given that once you get past the last 50 or so messages in my inbox, you’re looking at things that have generally been waiting a lot more than a week, I probably should just accept that almost anything would be an improvement. (I have close to 900 needs-response messages in my e-mail currently. Sigh.)
Thinking out loud, mostly. But hey, while I’m here, I’ll note that the cayenne & dark chocolate roses for the treat boxes look very pretty with edible red paint (which also signals danger! beautiful danger! useful for cayenne!), and thanks to Emmanuel for the suggestion!
Stephanie Bailey, can you add these “Spicy Red Rose Dark Chocolates” to the Serendib confection listings? Same pricing as the dragonfruit nebulae chocolates.
Gosh, see, my mind just goes in every direction at once. Dealing with e-mail exacerbates the issue. Squirrel!
Must keep focus on goal — hand off / restructure as much as possible, so there is more focused time for Mary Anne to write. Books to finish! So many books!