In the previous post I provided a detailed look at some Collection strategies for SEs. Today I am going to provide my GTD Process strategy.
GTD breaks Process into a discrete task for a reason. Part of the trap we fall into as SEs is the interupt-driven culture of our rep, customer calls, and various emails driving our immediate action. To an extent this is just reality (not necessarily good or bad), but compartmentalizing will allow you to orderly process (and later prioritize) all these inputs. As SEs most of your input is going to come via email, phone, and from customers during appointments. Accomplishing tasks based on your objective assement of importance instead of which screams the loudest is the foundational objective of this section.
One of the gems of this section is the productivity boost you get when you compartmentalize your tasks. A tangible example of this would be to stop checking email (i.e. Processing) in the middle of an unrelated task such as preparing a customer presentation. The essence of this step involves crafting a daily schedule and workflow that’s adpated to your situation. As soon as I switched from the mentality of checking emails immediatly to a preset schedule I found stress lowered and productivity on my most important tasks dramatically improved.
A Process routine is very generic. It simply consists of gathering up all of your inputs from your Collection strategy, and making sense of them.
For me it follows this pattern:
I open the inbox and go through each email individually. I read it and do one of three things:
- I drag it to my Task folder where it auto-generates a task where I decide on my next action(s) to take. The original email then goes in a “Waiting” folder where I store emails I need to reply/forward.
- I delete it (the one I use by far the most)
- I file it in a generic “Reference” or project-specific email folder (more on this later under Organize)
There’s nothing else to it. After I look at the email once, I never look at it again. After I am done I have 0 emails in my inbox.
Notes
With my various notetaking sources (see the Collect section), I gather all of my notes and go through each line and decide what to do. If it’s actionable it generates Next Actions, which most of them do. The remainder are simply reference. For the majority of those I will retype them in a simple notepad file that resides in each of my project folders on my computer. My preference is electronic which enables searching and access from anywhere. Not only does this help internalize the notes via the act of rewriting, but it gives you a chance to add them in a more intelligent way rather than just your shorthand attempt at capturing the thought. I keep my physical notepads for several months but disgard the one off notes I’ve captured.
Voicemail
I process voice messages in the same way as email except it doesn’t get filed. It gets listened to once, recorded in the system, them immediately deleted.
Schedule
Make a committment to yourself to schedule time to Process. Too often we Collect, Process, and Do at the same time. My best advice is to resolve yourself to set aside a separate time to Process. I do a full Process routine 3 times a day: morning, noon, and before I “disconnect for the day” typically in the early evening. I do scan a few extra times during the day, usually between big tasks. That simply means scanning incoming email/voicemails to see if there was something high priority to address. I’ve added Google Voice as my main phone number which gives you voicemail transcription services for free. That way you can quickly scan vmail as easily as email.
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