DevYou

I’m a huge fan of processing my email inbox only once a day. I plow through it mid-day every day, and when I’m done my inbox is totally empty. It’s amazing how much this has helped my overall workflow.

The trouble is, when I swoop into Gmail to compose an email at other times of the day or evening, just seeing the unread messages in my inbox gives me a mild but perceptible jolt of stress. Worse yet, I feel the temptation to process all that mail right then and there. Obviously, this little jolt of stress and resisting the temptation to read all that mail is a waste of energy. So, I purposefully set up a method of composing new emails without seeing the inbox at all. I do it by combining Quicksilver and Gmail’s compose page.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Launch Google Notifier. Under ordinary circumstances, I strongly advise against running mail notifiers (unless you’re, say, expecting an urgent email that requires immediate attention), but for this process we need a way to get to the compose URL and Google Notifier is one such way.
2. Set Google Notifier to use Gmail for composing email. Set this in the Gmail tab of Preferences.
3. Choose Compose Mail in Google Notifier. A new browser window will appear containing the the Gmail compose form.
4. Bookmark the page. I called this bookmark “compose_gmail” and filed it with my “just for quicksilver” bookmarks. Remember to give it a name that is descriptive, but unique so that you an do an efficient type-ahead search in Quicksilver.
5. Quit Google Notifier. You don’t want it running, do you? Nope!
6. Bring up Quicksilver and rescan.

That’s it! Now whenever you want to send an email without the distraction of seeing your inbox first, simply bring up Quicksilver, type the first few letters of your Gmail compose bookmark name, and *voila!* you land directly on the compose page.

An easy but effective way to improve your GTD system is to make sure your next actions are worded such that they describe the next physical act you must perform — not an abstract notion related to the action.For example: Rather than “Make sure Bob knows the dolphin is really a robot”, use “Call Bob and warn him about the robo-dolphin.”

See the difference? “Make sure bob knows the dolphin is really a robot” is too vague. “Making sure” isn’t an action you can take. You may “be sure” after you’ve taken some action, but “making sure” itself isn’t something you can do.

In contrast, “Call bob and warn him about the robo-dolphin” is a concrete, physical action. Pick up that phone and call him.

When I review my lists, I keep an eye out for these vague, non-action phrasings and replace them. For instance, I frequently — in my haste — add next actions that are just things. Like, “subcontractor agreement”, or “printer ink”, or “robo-dolphin.” None of those are physical actions I can perform, so I replace them with better phrasing: “Email subcontractor agreement to Bob”, “Go to Ink-o-Rama and buy printer ink”, and “Activate and release evil robo-dolphin.”

Er, I mean “Call Bob and warn him about the robo-dophin.” Yes… that’s it. Warn. Must warn Bob…

[Note: This article originally appeared in one of my other blogs earlier this year. I'm up to my eyeballs in preparations for my move, so I'm saving a bit of time by re-using this. But don't worry; the info is still timely. Have a great weekend!]