Starting fresh when you’re buried deep!

Take a look at your desk; is your inbox piled with paper and your desk covered with clutter? I know personally keeping on top of the ever accumulating stack of papers being delivered to my inbox, and keeping my desk clear is a constant struggle.

In our new modern world we’re deluged with email (I average 80 actionable email messages per day at work) as well as being bombarded by an unending stream of paper too.

The promise of the 21st century was a paperless work place, but most people still have to process as much paper as ever plus electronic communications to boot!

It’s extremely easy to get behind in the sorting, processing and handling of this flood of information. Once you’re a little behind the gap between where you are and being “caught up” gets a little wider every day. Pretty soon the gap is a chasm and you don’t see any way to build a bridge and get back to being “caught up.”

What you need is a fresh start, but how do you get a fresh start when you’re buried and the backlog keeps getting bigger every day?

The first thing to do is realize that there are tools out there to help out. If you’ve not picked up and read Getting Things Done by David Allen, I recommend you start with it. One of the best ideas I took away from Getting Things Done (GTD for those “in the know”) was the process to work through your backlog and get caught up.

David recommends you do this for every aspect of your life; gather up all of your loose ends and then process them to completion. This is a big challenge. If you’re already overwhelmed and buried, trying to get your entire life’s loose ends gathered and in one spot for processing will just overwhelm you more.

I recommend you segment your life into chunks, triage the areas that are the worst or that you’ll see the biggest benefit from fixing, and then working only on one single area until you’re caught up.

The first step is to get a fresh start. Once you’re behind this is critical because if you don’t draw a line in the sand, you’ll never be back on top.

Here’s what to do:

1) Get a big inbox that’s empty; I use a legal-size beast that’s 6″ deep).

2) Put every single paper on your desk in it! No cheating, gather them all up and put them in your empty inbox. Your desk should be squeaky clean when you’re finished.

3) Once your desk is clear, turn the inbox upside down on your desk and work through the stack one time only! You want to use the three “Ds” when you work through; Delegate it, Defer it, or Delete it.

4) Delegate whatever you can to others. Put these papers aside so you can go hand them out when you’re finished.

5) Defer anything that requires action on your part. These papers go back into the inbox.

6) Delete as much as possible; send it to the “round file.” If you’re like me, you probably get a large amount in your inbox (email too) that just doesn’t need your action or delegation to staff. Throw it away! Make your motto, “When in doubt, throw it out!”

7) Put your deferred items (which should be only a fraction of the original total) aside, stick them in a drawer, just get them out of the way for a moment. You are trying to get a fresh start.

Congratulations, you should now be the proud owner of a clean desk and an empty inbox; the challenge is now to keep it that way! Now you have to commit to staying on top of your inbox; process it at the end of each day before you leave. Your goal should be to go home with an empty inbox on your desk.

Now you have a fresh start, but what do you do with the “deferred” pile of papers? You need to create a separate plan to handle them. Handling your backlog is now a project, and you schedule it and assign resources just like you would any other project you have to accomplish.

For this project you need to set a time-line to finish handling all of your deferred paper. You need to plan and schedule time to work on chipping away at your backlog. You need to manage yourself just like you would for any other project on your plate.

You will find that your backlog will start to dwindle even more, and if you’re keeping on top of your inbox on a daily basis you’ll stay “caught up.”

To speed things up even more you should figure out whether you’re “a filer or a piler”. I am most definitely a piler; spending all my time organizing papers into files sends shivers up my spine. I’ll do it when I have to, but for most of my needs a “piling system” suits me just fine.

You can now pause and enjoy being on top of at least one area of your life. To truly achieve balance you should repeat this process for your home office or anywhere else you’re buried in clutter and information. Once you get “caught up” you should enjoy the feeling, but you can’t rest because once you do things will start piling up around you again.

Don’t let the backlog “gap” come back!

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Here are some related articles you might also enjoy!

• Do you skim the surface or dive deep?
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• Give value first.
• Don’t plan yourself to death.
• Ready-to-print 3×5 index card

January 13th, 2006

Entry Filed under: Time Management, Productivity, Tools