Big days

I've in the middle of my second week on the new position. It seems to be going well, though, for the first time, I'm really seeing that I only have so many hours in a day. I finally put another aspect of David Allen's book, Getting Things Done, into practice. His basic concept is that one must keep one's head as free of small items to remember as possible.

Thus when something comes up that will have to be dealt with at some point in my in box, I try to either 1) Deal with it if it takes two minutes or less, 2) delegate it if appropriate to do so, or 3) File it in a manner that I am comfortable that I know to deal with it later. This is keeping my Outlook inbox on zero messages these days, which is a great help. Why? Because according to Allen, and he's right, our conscious mind is like the RAM on our computer. It can only handle so many things at once before it begins to stutter and fail. If you keep your ram free to focus on tasks at hand, you will deal with those tasks more effectively.

So this led to the next stage for me, the "43 Folders," which has become something of a cult in the United States. There was a nice NPR story about it a year or two ago. The idea is that you have a tickler filing system of 43 folders--one for every day of the month and every month of the year. I in fact own a label maker.

The thing is that this actually works. I have never been much of a self-help guy, but this is an easy system that can be used a little or a lot. The end result is that your head is clearer and calmer than before.