4 Simple Ways To Manage Your Inbox

Everyone knows that getting the important things done each and every day and walking away from everything else is the secret to success.  We all have to process tremendous amounts of information all the time and there are so many things we simply cannot fit into an already loaded schedule.

Sometimes we take relatively simple concepts and make them too complicated.  This is my conviction about the subject of personal productivity.  When something hits my “inbox”, regardless of its source: email, cell phone, mail, interruptions, there are only four possible things I am going to do.

DELETE—If it is not important, I immediately kill it as fast as possible.

DELAY—If if is not urgent that it be done now, I file it for later.

DELEGATE—If it is something someone else can do as well or better than I can, they own it.

DO—If the first three options do not work, then it has to fit into my daily plan.

I will admit this is a very simple process with the exception of one phrase:  IS IT IMPORTANT?

Technology  and productivity may increase your efficiency but they cannot tell you if what you are doing should be done at all.  Only your character and core values personally and professionally can do that.