Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Parkinson’s Law

Because having few time helps us to use it and organize it more efficiently.

You don’t believe me? Ok. Answer the following question honestly: During which phase of a project do you achieve most of work? If your answer is “on the early stage” you are an extraordinary person (or a shameless liar). My short experience shows me most of us are more productive in the last 20% of a project…because of the fear of the deadline.

I remember when I was a student I always waited for the last moment to seriously start a project with always the same excuse ,“I have plenty of time…”. Result: I spent some nights working like a slave to finished assignments. It’s not a very good way to manage time but I learned a lot.

Why set very hard to meet deadlines

Focus on the necessary: we tend to prioritize better when we know we have few time to complete a task. As a software engineer, I always start to work on the killer feature of my application and leave secondary ones for later. Running out of time forces ourselves to focus on the 20% that matters.

Give yourself 8 hours to achieve a task and it’s gonna take you 8 hours. Give yourself 4 hours and you will complete the same task in 4 hours. (Tips for manager: realize this experience with your team members: ask two of them to complete the same task, one with a one day deadline and the other with a half-day deadline. I bet results are gonna be somehow similar). In fact, we have a unfortunate tendency to fill the void.

How I set deadlines

This is how I set deadlines. It’s not universal rule. I just noticed it works well for me. I call it “the 50% rule” (Yes I love percentages and numbers).

I try to think objectively about how much time I need to achieve the task. I find an appropriate amount of time. I eventually set the deadline at 50% of this time. That’s it.

And you how do you manage deadlines?

photo credit: TLMELO

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Keeping my life simple helps me to calm down my mind and focus on my goals. Some people like to be busy and overwhelmed, they think they exist. Unlike them I truly believe that simplifying my life allows me to see well and make better decision.

Here is how I avoid complexity and enjoy my life.

Why we usually love complexity

Complexity is challenging. So we are inclined to complicate everything in order to make our life exciting. However complexity doesn’t bring happiness, it fights boredom but instead of making us fulfilled complexity makes us overwhelmed.

In companies, managers love complexity because it gives us power and control about their job and coworkers. High salaries have to be justified. Nevertheless they will be more efficient and effective making processes and structure easier to understand.

Before to revolutionizing professional environment I’m gonna tackle personal issues.

Simplify my mind

Thinking about how my stress is related to the 80/20 principle I identified :

• 80% of my stress comes from 20% of my life
• 80% of my stress comes from 20% of my relationship
• 80% of my customers requests came from 20% of my customers.

I first think “How can I get rid of this 20% that pollute my life?” Some are easy to avoid but it’s hard to disconnect from every problem (dealing with your rebellious teenager son for instance). So I decided to focus on the few things I can control and try to follow some principles.

Zen my mind

Zen attitude is trendy nowadays but I don’t speak about meditation, yoga or relaxation. I just talk about stopping to occupy my mind with low importance stuff.

First step I try to keep everything out of my mind. I have a powerful memory but trying to remember everything tire me out (and sometimes I forget things). So I write down everything….todo tasks, ideas, piece of information. I eventually setup a trustworthy system that allows me to keep a trace of everything that cross my mind. It’s a rule advised by David Allen in his Getting This Done book, put everything in you inbox in order to free you mind.

However you need to trust your inbox system (if not it’s useless since you will still be worried about forgetting anything). My system is a mix between software Evernote and my phone when I’m away from my computer. (I should use more often the Jott.com’s voice-to-text services linked with Evernote). You should find the system that fit your way of life and needs. It could be a notebook you carry all the time or your iPhone.

Disconnect with what you don’t want

Don’t hate, ignore

Sometimes the easiest solution is to run away from the source of the problem. All your issues at work come from one coworker, try to no longer work with him. One of your “friends” brings drama, stop hanging out with him (even though I try to talk before to find a solution.) …

I cannot always stir clear of every problems but some of them don’t worth energy and time I could spend to solve them.

Accept and deal with

If there’s no solution, there’s no problem.

This is a quote from The Shadoks, a famous old cartoon in France. I don’t know if my interpretation is correct but this is what I think:

Problems exist because you try to solve them. If you stop trying to solve them it’s no longer problems. You can’t apply this every time but I used to look for solution when there were no issue. I learned how to accept and deal with some of my worries. I cannot control everything, I just focus on what I have the power to change.

Simplify my environment

Everything I talked about in previous paragraphs are also applicable with objects. I never liked to get tons of bibelots that pissed me off every time I need to sweep them up. I try to keep my closet simple and useful and don’t keep clothes or stuff I don’t use anymore (move out every six months helped me to get rid of my old stuff). I’m not a huge fan of gigantic house where you spend most of your time cleaning it.

I’m a kind of practical guy who enjoy simple environment. It makes my mind peaceful and give me more time to activity that matter. Less things to think about, less things to clean or repair, just the essential.

And you? How simple do you like your life?

photo credit: moogs

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Living the 80/20 way means be more efficient and effective perfoming tasks. One activity I used to waste a lot of time is email management.

These are the rules I encourage myself to follow in order to not be overwhelmed by emails.

Step 1 : Use Gmail

Gmail is THE service provided by Google you cannot ignored…after research of course. I don’t dislike the other webmails but Gmail features are so complete and make your email management much easier and faster.

I like Gmail for:

• The powerful search engine
• The possibility to fetch emails from external accounts
• Labels and filters
• Conversation threading system
• Hotkeys
• …

Step 2 : Group all my emails into the same inbox

I stopped checking several emails inboxes. It’s a waste of time. To do that Gmail provides a great feature: get email from external accounts. Go in the settings of your Gmail account then in the Account tab. In the Get mail from other accounts part click on Add another mail account. Enter email address, username and password. From now Gmail will check this external account periodically and it will display emails into your normal inbox. There is only one limitation: your external account needs to use POP3 protocol, Hotmail don’t for example…

Thanks to this feature I have centralized all my email in the same place.

Step 3 : Delete, delete and delete again.

The goal is now to keep in my inbox only the bare minimum.

I delete every emails I won’t need later. Example: As a Amazon customer I receive occasionally by email special offers. If I’m not interested by products advertised I delete the email, if I am I check Amazon Web site and delete the email once it’s done because I will probably not need it later.

Keep only emails that contain useful information.

Step 4 : Archive aggressively

I keep in my inbox only immediately vital emails, I archive the rest.

I keep visible emails I need to answer or that contain immediately useful information.

I archive emails that contains useful information I will probably need later. (Ex: A link I want to remember, an address, interesting conversation etc…). When I need it I use the powerful search engine to find it. Don’t forget research is the main job at Google.

Now I have in my inbox only actionable messages (pending answer…) or immediate added-value. My mind is no longer overwhelmed by tons of useless emails.

Step 5 : Subscribe only to indispensable alerts and newsletters.

This step is not about how to manage emails efficiently but about attacking the cause of the problem, reducing the quantity of useless emails I received.

I unsubscribed to almost every newsletters. To do it I follow the following rule:

I ask myself: “Does this newsletter worth the five minutes I spend to read it?” If I hesitate more than 3 seconds I unsubscribe.

I think about it also before subscribe to a new one. Most of the time I think about ten seconds and don’t subscribe eventually.

Moreover most of social network Web sites have alerts feature every time someone add me as a contact or tag me on pictures. I’ve deactivated all these notifications that bring no value. To do it yourself just go in your favorite social networks into settings panel.

Step 6 : Use labels and filters

Labels in Gmail work as tags. I use labels to organize emails and find them faster. I create label for projects or specific topics. The main advantage in comparison with Outlook-like folders system is I can apply several labels to the same message. Thus, I can tag an email “Project A” and “todo” for instance.

Filters are automatic actions achieved according to criteria. I use them to automatically apply a label when I receive emails from specific people or directly archive some emails without displaying it in the inbox.

Step 7 : Batch your email session

I used to be an emailaholic, checking my inbox every five minutes, waiting for important messages. This method is not very efficient.

A much better solution is to check new emails only twice a day. (11am and 5pm for example) and process all my message in one session.

When I process my emails I follow the two minutes rule from David Allen (author of Getting Things Done). Idea is simple : if I can answer within two minutes I do it immediately and archive the message. If I need thinking or research that can exceeded two minutes I keep it in my inbox and label it in order to find it more easily. Then I process next email and get back to the previous one later.

Step 8 : Answer briefly

I try to answer emails in five sentences maximum. That forces myself to be concise and only get to the heart of the matter.

I don’t like five pages emails and prefer when people get down to basic essentials. So I try to do the same writing only short and useful content. I said “try” .

What do so think about my email management method?

Source: Problogger, The 4-Hour Workweek, Getting Things Done and Problogger again

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