An Empty Inbox

An empty inbox is a scary thing. I'm used to using it as a holding place, a reminder of things to do. I get a lot of email. Some of it is personal, some of it is business, some of it is newsletters and e-zines, some of it is mailing groups, and of course there's a large percentage of spam in there as well.

But I'm reading Getting Things Done by David Allan, again, and trying to implement a few more of his ideas.

One of the things he says is that a lot of our mental energy is expended by worrying about things we know we need to do, that once we get an idea in our head our brain worries it to death to make sure we don't forget about it. If, on the other hand, we have a system in place to make sure we will deal with things at the apropriate times, then our brain can let go of it.

This makes sense to me. I know I worry more about the stuff that I may or may not do than the stuff for which I have a set time already planned. I think this is why so many of us feel better after doing a major brain dump of all the little nagging things. For a short time, we feel good. We unloaded that stuff onto paper. But then if we don't actually do it, the brain picks up on it and starts worrying about it.

So the Inbox looks strange to me. I answered a few short emails and deleted or filed the other 100 or so messages. I created 3 new folders. ".Action" is for messages that I need to do something about. ".Waiting For" for things I can't act upon until someone else gives me something. The dot forces them to the top of my folders list.