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Are you Master of your domain? |
My days were out of control. I felt as though I was a married to my inbox. Something had to be done so that I could regain control and have time to just breathe at the end of a long day. So, about a month ago, I took a class called the Effective Edge . And, oh, was it effective.
As a sort of continuum of Robin’s Obey My Blog, here is my story.
What wasn’t working for me was my constant obsession with checking my e-mail. It ran my day and made it hard to give one project my full attention. I tried closing Outlook for a couple of hours at a time to see if that helped. But, it didn’t work in my case. I just always felt like I was missing something, so I’d find myself constantly opening and closing it – and that just took up a lot of time.
I had high hopes for the class I was enrolled in and I showed up completely ready to learn a new way of doing things. Here are some of the main takeaway points that have helped me:
- Start your day off with a Mind Sweep – take a minute to brainstorm about all of the actions items that you need to take care of and write it out. This helps you get it out of your mind
- Use your task list to help manage the action items that need to be accomplished. Create these tasks when you are doing your Mind Sweep.
- Keep your task list open and not always your inbox.
- Turn off that annoying pop up box that alerts you when you have an e-mail – it only serves as a distraction
- Organize your inbox – to make it easier to find certain e-mails when you do need to go back to reference something
- Take breaks to clear your head for a few minutes
I’ve been following this mantra now for a little while and it has made a huge difference in my stress level and my productivity. I get more sleep at night, my inbox and I give each other our space and I’m getting things done faster. I have regained control. I am Master of my domain.
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Hey Taylor - All great advice - I've been *trying* to keep my inbox in order for a while, but always love to hear other tips. I also love the advice in this recent post from Matt Brown - a freelancer out in Seattle - about keeping your workspace (physical desktop and your computer desktop) clear and clutter free. I think it's helped me immensely. Now if I could stop the pesky problem I have with RSS feeds...
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Good advice Taylor. I find that having work e-mail go to my iPhone is the ultimate distraction. It might have been a mistake to set that up. Nothing like the cluster2 e-mails at midnight to help you fall asleep.
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I never thought of turning off that pesky little popup... www.charitynetusa.com/blog