I once worked for a company that installed a new email server every time the volume of messages in the system got too high for the old server to handle. For a small company doing business in the Information Age this way, such an upgrade can become an annual event.
At the time, it was encouraging to know that somebody had my back, that my “system” — in which my inbox doubled as a contacts list, tripled as a photo file, and did quadruple duty as a to-do list — would not be allowed to crash, no matter how big or unwieldy I allowed it to become.
What I did not realize at the time was that by this benevolent act of IT management, my former employer was enabling a bunch of addicts.
Our fix of choice: Bits.
When I left that position, I purged thousands of email messages, freeing millions of bits. A few weeks prior, I would have thought that life, as I knew it, would collapse around me if those messages were lost. My former colleagues expressed similar trepidation whenever a new server was brought online: “Okay, but I can’t afford to lose any messages.” When forced to come to terms with all those messages, to finally engage all those bits, a hard truth became clear: As a bit addict, I had hit rock bottom.
To set her up for success in her new job, I realized that my successor only needed to hang onto a few dozen of my old contacts and some project tracking records. Thousands of emails = a few dozen contacts and some project tracking records. That doesn’t add up.
A few weeks after I realized the staggering inefficiencies of my “system” for managing (mismanaging?) email at my old job, a colleague here handed me a copy of Bit Literacy, a book by Mark Hurst.
In the book, the author outlines a system he developed over the past decade for managing the various bit streams that today’s office workers need to engage.
Mark sums up his approach to dealing with this potential information overload in one simple mantra: Let the bits go. Beginning with email and touching on other bit streams (files, photos, to-dos, digital media), Mark advocates facing this flood head on, and outlines some steps for doing so bit stream by bit stream.
In the case of email, this involves a combination of quickly gleaning and extracting the pertinent information contained in any message, sorting it into its proper place (contacts into a contacts folder, important dates into a calendar, websites into a bookmarks folder, and to-dos in a to-do management system like gootodo.com, which Mark’s company also developed), plus liberal use of the delete button. Mark eats his own cooking, too. He claims to end every day with 0 messages in his inbox. This, he writes, makes him more productive and less stressed.
More productive and less stressed: Two important traits to cultivate, on a new job or at a job you’ve had for years. Of course, a new job has the advantage of coming with a new inbox, with a message count already at 0, or close to it.
Mark concedes that there is a sort of satisfaction that comes from a loaded inbox. People who get a lot of email are important. And important people can’t possibly have a message count of 0.
But satisfaction can come from other places – places that don’t necessitate new email servers being installed at regular intervals. Projects carry over. There is always more work. But for me, at least for now, I’m done for the day when I have no more to-dos on today’s page on Gootodo.com, and when my inbox has 0 (not one, not 5, but 0) messages.
Now that feels satisfying.
So true. This might have spurred a new bit cleaning project for me.