I've counseled (ad nauseum) on the dangers of leaving your email app set to autocheck more often than every 15 minutes or so. Apart from generating an appalling number of pointless interruptions, persistent autocheck can also condition you into some really weird habits.

Perhaps worst of all, you begin to think of your email program primarily as a delivery and notification system -- a kind of communications slot machine whose hopeful beeping and lightshows habituate you into thinking "just one more pull...."

And, let's be honest. If you've been procrastinating a boring project all afternoon, what could be more attractive than that little "beep" and the possibility that you just got an email from that really cute girl in Finance -- or maybe even got added to some rock star's My Space. It could happen. Better go check!

Do you have a sloppy relationship with the messages in your life? Be honest. Do you tend to see every new email as a virtual hug that must be reciprocated? Do you keep emails in your inbox for weeks or months even though you know in your heart of hearts that you have no intention of ever responding to them? If so, it's dragging you down if you ever hope to hit "zero" in this lifetime. Mentioned briefly yesterday, it bears repeating: delete, my friend. Delete, delete, delete.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006: Monthly Program (BayCHI)

Just a reminder that tomorrow night I'll be speaking at the monthly BayCHI meeting down in Palo Alto.

OSAF's estimable Mimi Yin and I will be talking about Getting Things Done partly in theory but mostly in practice; Mimi will focus on how Chandler is being developed to support GTD practices, and I'll be addressing the ways behavioral change can help enhance any tools and methodologies we've chosen to improve productivity.

As far as I can tell, it's free and open to the public, so if you're in the 'hood, stop by and watch me stammer along in front of a really, really smart audience. Talk about intimidating.

Edit 2006-03-15 07:51:15: Had a great time last night. Very fun and lively crowd. Here's my slides, if you like that sort of thing.

Apparently there will be a podcast of Mimi and my talks forthcoming, so keep an eye out. (Thanks, Steve!)

Filters and scripts can greatly minimize the manual processing you do each day as well as way cut down on unnecessary interruptions. The trouble comes when you're filtering so much stuff (especially via "sender" and "subject" filters) that you end up scattering useful and timely updates into a jillion different places out of view. This can be that rarest of beasts where you've actually automated too much.

Instead, focus on creating filters and scripts for any noisy, frequent, and non-urgent items which can be dealt with all at a pass and later. Depending on what you consider noise, this could probably include:

In the words of the great Lucas Jackson: "Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."