Inbox (Nearly) Zero

Posted on May 21, 2012     Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 17 Minutes
Video Time: 1 Hour; Or 22 Minutes

I was first introduced to the concept of Inbox Zero by watching the above video of Merlin Mann speaking at Google.

It’s an hour-long video, so watch it only when you have the time. Otherwise, read some of his articles on his website. It’s a great video that sparked me to come up with my own system that worked for me. The beginning is an intro and the end is some great Q&A. For the real 22-minute long meat of the video, jump to 10:21 and watch until 32:27.

Before, I had never really thought about email. Sure, I used Gmail every day, in fact many times a day, but I didn’t think about how I used it. I, probably like many of you, was guilty of everything Merlin spoke about in the video. I had three email accounts, each open in separate tabs, which I constantly flipped through and checked every five minutes, no matter what I was doing. Even worse, I had no idea what I even had in any of my three inboxes. I wasted too much time scrolling through thousands of emails and information I no longer needed, just to find that one email or small detail that I was looking for.

I never thought of it as a problem, because I simply never thought of it. But as soon as I saw the video, I knew that I needed a change. Read More

New Year’s Resolutions 2012

Posted on December 29, 2011     Leave a Comment

I figured a new year’s resolution list would be an appropriate way to get this off the ground.
New Year, New Life.

So without further ado, here’s a list of things to accomplish throughout the year:

  1. Write
    Ideas are well and good, but putting them down to help others act really counts.
  2. Health
    Further regiment eating habits and catalog the process and progress.
  3. Fitness
    Work out on a solid schedule and detail the methods and results.
  4. Skill
    Learn to do something new.
  5. Minimize
    Making a conscious decision to own less stuff, and get more out of everything.
  6. Travel
    Plan out and follow through with an amazing trip.
  7. Produce
    Time is limited, make everything count towards self-enrichment, make something.
  8. Live
    By any means necessary: adventures, friends, anything and everything.

There it is.
Follow along and learn mental and physical tricks to make ourselves better.
Lets see how we do.