http://www.flickr.com/photos/russandlori/3529685444

I have read plenty of articles on how to deal with this problem but I so far have only found one reliable method of dealing with the problem. This method is called Getting Things Done which I have in turn adapted to best suit exactly how I work.

Side Note: Getting Things Done (or GTD), a google search for GTD will find you plenty of articles on it, although the definitive read is that of GTD creator, David Allen.

The key ideas of GTD are:

• Maintain an empty (or zero) inbox – your inbox should only contain unread email.
• Visit your inbox only periodically through the day, say once every hour or two, the less often you visit it the less you will be distracted from other tasks.
• Triage your emails – categorise them as you read them:

• If it takes less than 5 mins to action and reply to the email do it immediately and remove from inbox.
• If it is something that you will do today, then move it to a folder for today’s work.
• If it is something that you want to get done this week, then move it to a folder for this weeks tasks.
• If the email contains useful reference information store it in a folder for reference.

Does it sound too good to be true?

Sounds simple? Too simple? It really does work, the only problem I have found is that it is often hard not to drop back into the inbox every so often especially when you are using folders in you mail app to review today’s tasks and this weeks tasks.

This is why I have altered GTD slightly to work with external tools that allow me to close my email for a couple of hours whilst working on the stuff I need to do.

My changes to GTD are simple: when I have emails that I can’t work on immediately I forward them to Toodeldo.com – a task management system – thus removing them from my inbox. If the email contains things I need for reference then I forward the email to Evernote.com.

Both of these services offer an individual email address that can be used to load data into your account e.g. Username123.454545@evernote.com. I have these emails setup in my address book as “Convert to Task” (toodeldo) and ”Send to Evernote” (evernote).

Doing this enables me to empty my inbox first thing in the morning and then close my email until later in the day.

What do I get from this process?

I have managed to make my working day much more productive by controlling my email and not letting my email dominate my working day. I think this is something that everyone can do and get great benefits from.

I would encourage people to try this out for at least a week – accounts with Evernote and Toodeldo are free with only a couple of restrictions and

Do you think GTD could help you? Why or why not?

Part of it is to support the German team, but mostly it is about the stories behind the people and understanding what this all means to them.

For the last winter Olympics that we were in the UK for – Nicole watched the German coverage on our TV but also had a laptop showing her the BBC interactive coverage so that she could see every event going on – and follow any news and updates in English and German from various websites.

This year is not so good though – although the first two channels in Spain have coverage all day of the Olympics – they are very focused on Spain – and keep reshowing their great moments – forgoing live action for endless repeats of cycling and other things they are good at. The have a web streaming service but mostly this just rebroadcasts what is on the TV – which is not really the point.

As we are in Spain the BBC and German internet streams are not available to us – so Nicole is coping with text based updates and the odd illegal feed over the internet.

However Gary has just said that he can do some technical jiggery-pokery and help Nicole watch the BBC coverage from here across the internet. Hooray for Gary – what a great and fine (if a little short) man he is.

It is Nicole’s birthday in a couple of days and this is the best present she could get at the moment!

Thanks to Gary!

We went to our usual football bar last night to watch the match, it is right by the football stadium and a popular bar for Spaniards, we watched the German semi-final on Wednesday day there also. On Wednesday we had to get there early to get seat – getting there at 8pm for the 8:45 kickoff. Last night we thought it would be more crowded and got there for 7:45 – but it was already full.

The indoor part of the bar is so small that you can only get people queuing for the bar and toliets to fit inside, but outdoors there are hundreds of chairs, from the main bar and two additional bars on either side.

We had to watch the match from a side bar which was a shame, but co-incidently this was the same bar we had watched Russia and Spain play their first match of the tournament. Previously there had been a drunk guy sat in front of us who was quite unpleasant but bearable, this time we got the Spanish National Front as company.

We could not get seats and could only stand leaning on some railings, we were squeezed in behind a table of guys smoking unlawful substances, but the wind was brisk and the fumes were not a problem. Around us though were many skinheaded guys carrying (what I found out later was) a Neo-fascist flag. These guys kept saluting each other with one arm, which came to be quite noticeable.

I had already said to Nicole that if things started going Russia’s way that I didn’t want to be in the area at the end of the match – as it was there was no problems from that. Some of the goals celebrations were great and loud – more like being in a stadium than a bar! I have embedded the three goal celebrations below – you will notice they ran out of fireworks for the third! :-D

We moved to the back of the crowd as the 90th minute went – not sure what to expect as a celebration of the 3-0 victory. It was interesting to note how many people were keen to get away from the area quickly (out of the one and half thousand or so most left quickly).

First Goal:

Second Goal:

Third Goal:

Clay Shirky at Web 2.0 Expo SF

The basic manifesto this guy has is that there is a huge “Cognitive Surplus” out there that is not being used – it is mostly be wasted watching TV and spending time being passive. He likens TV watching to alcohol consumption and the Industrial Revolution – saying that people needed Gin then to cope with having too many people around them. TV watching has been the way to cope with having too much spare time in the post world war II lives we need.

Clay thinks that the internet is being to create ways to better use the time when we are not working – wikipedia being a very constructive example of the “cognitive surplus” being used and not wasted.

He also thinks the next generations are waking up to live in this world and are treating TV watching as a previous generation started treating alcohol and substance abuse during the industrial revolution.