Getting Things Done [GTD] in Email

Does your inbox look like this? If not, why not? There really is no excuse especially when you combine David Allen’s Getting Things Done [GTD] principles with Google’s powerful Gmail technology…

Effectively handling e-mail is a passion of mine; I believe that the ability to effectively handle e-mail separates the sheep from the goats in the business world. How can you ever aspire to thought leadership if you can’t get out of your inbox? I have been using e-mail since 1994 and I remember initially how excited I was to get newsletters in my inbox. I thought to myself how cool is this? I can have companies send me news?!? Now, almost 20 years later I’m doing everything I can to hunt down and kill newsletters in my inbox and instead consume the information in Google Reader!

As someone who is so passionate about e-mail I read a lot of different articles about various strategies for achieving Inbox Zero. Not once however have I heard someone offer this simple advice: jealously guard your inbox! Only allow things into your inbox that are related to relationships or revenue. Everything else belongs in Google Reader. When you do email do email and save news for a time to look at news! If if you will follow that one simple rule and implement some of the steps that I outline in this screencast, you will once again become master of your e-mail domain!