In which inbox zero has some downsides
Feb. 2nd, 2024 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zeborahThere's been this brief period at work, at the end of last year and the beginning of this, when I wasn't in the middle of any high pressure projects and I actually got to the point of tidying some of the mess on my desk and going back through old emails to see if anything was still actionable.
And I deleted so many emails that inbox zero started to seem achievable. So I got more serious about this, and also tweaked my folder hierarchy slightly, and also went "What if I actually use the Tasklist to manage tasks like I've kept meaning to forever?" and by the start of this week I was actually doing this.
They tell you this makes you so much more efficient because you can spend all your time actually focusing on your proper work instead of spending a bunch of time sorting through your emails again.
They're right (at least in my case) - but what they don't tell you is that spending all your time actually focusing on your proper work is exhausting.
Sorting through emails may take up time, but it doesn't take up nearly as many mental processing units as working through two overlapping batch hiring processes and juggling the rosters involved in that and making notes on performance appraisals and dealing with a... deeply silly matter that still requires due process... and running a team planning meeting and oh god I'm a manager now quick let's slip in teaching a workshop about copyright compliance and whoops now I'm troubleshooting someone's login problems oh and now someone else needs me to explain why, not only can I not really give them a list of our databases (the category has fuzzy borders), but even if I did, it wouldn't answer the question they should be asking.
By the end of Monday it felt like it had been a full week. By today I was making a whole bunch of 2+2 errors. 2+2 errors are what I've decided to call the thing where you've got 2 in one hand and 2 in the other hand but you just forget that this means you have 4. Or maybe it's an Out Of Context error, ie you know a fact as it relates to one context but you just forget to apply the same fact to another context. Eg
I've managed to maintain inbox-zero-plus-using-the-tasklist for the full week but I'm pretty shattered. This week would probably have been pretty full-on even without a new organisational technique, but still I really think that the absence of the periodic downtime forced by needing to scroll through emails did contribute to making it a lot more intense. I'd like to continue using this technique (at least for a while; I go through organisation techniques like I go through chocolate bars) and maybe it'll also get easier with practice, but also in the absence of those little informal mini-breaks I think I need to get back into the habit of taking proper tea-breaks to decompress.
On the plus side, at the very *very* end of the day I finally put together the fact I knew about having Monday off, plus the fact I knew about Tuesday being a public holiday, and realised that this means that I get a four-day weekend!
And I deleted so many emails that inbox zero started to seem achievable. So I got more serious about this, and also tweaked my folder hierarchy slightly, and also went "What if I actually use the Tasklist to manage tasks like I've kept meaning to forever?" and by the start of this week I was actually doing this.
They tell you this makes you so much more efficient because you can spend all your time actually focusing on your proper work instead of spending a bunch of time sorting through your emails again.
They're right (at least in my case) - but what they don't tell you is that spending all your time actually focusing on your proper work is exhausting.
Sorting through emails may take up time, but it doesn't take up nearly as many mental processing units as working through two overlapping batch hiring processes and juggling the rosters involved in that and making notes on performance appraisals and dealing with a... deeply silly matter that still requires due process... and running a team planning meeting and oh god I'm a manager now quick let's slip in teaching a workshop about copyright compliance and whoops now I'm troubleshooting someone's login problems oh and now someone else needs me to explain why, not only can I not really give them a list of our databases (the category has fuzzy borders), but even if I did, it wouldn't answer the question they should be asking.
By the end of Monday it felt like it had been a full week. By today I was making a whole bunch of 2+2 errors. 2+2 errors are what I've decided to call the thing where you've got 2 in one hand and 2 in the other hand but you just forget that this means you have 4. Or maybe it's an Out Of Context error, ie you know a fact as it relates to one context but you just forget to apply the same fact to another context. Eg
- In the morning planning meeting I confidently mentioned that Joe Bloggs wasn't there because they were on leave; I remembered because they'd specifically apologised for that meeting. The meeting finished at 12:30, after which I worked through some vital roster-related emails, then went to lunch, then hurried back for my 1:30 one-on-one with Joe and was surprised not to find them at their desk.
- I've been super looking forward to my planned Monday off next week. Simultaneously I've been figuring that I can manage a slipping timeline if I can get a bunch of steps done on Monday next week (before the public holiday on Tuesday).
- When I finally put that particular 2+2 together today as I was closing my laptop and getting my bag and coat, I assured a colleague who's depending on that timeline that I'll check in online periodically through Monday to get those steps done. (It's mostly waiting to receive emails so that I can upload some pre-prepared files and click some buttons and then wait for more emails, so this isn't overly burdensome.) Hurried to catch my bus and three minutes later had to turn back to get my laptop, without which I can't do any of those steps.
I've managed to maintain inbox-zero-plus-using-the-tasklist for the full week but I'm pretty shattered. This week would probably have been pretty full-on even without a new organisational technique, but still I really think that the absence of the periodic downtime forced by needing to scroll through emails did contribute to making it a lot more intense. I'd like to continue using this technique (at least for a while; I go through organisation techniques like I go through chocolate bars) and maybe it'll also get easier with practice, but also in the absence of those little informal mini-breaks I think I need to get back into the habit of taking proper tea-breaks to decompress.
On the plus side, at the very *very* end of the day I finally put together the fact I knew about having Monday off, plus the fact I knew about Tuesday being a public holiday, and realised that this means that I get a four-day weekend!
