Adam and a crew of four other film makers travelled the U.S. for about two months to create a documentary about complacency.

I watched the trailer and now I am really curious to see the whole movie. Unfortunately, the production of the movie is more expensive than the team expected.

To raise additional money, they started a Kickstarter.com project. Please see the trailer and – if you like it – support the team to make the movie possible:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cranktank/im-fine-thanks

The underlying methodology of this strategy is the assumption that the information of the sender and the recipient of an email can be used to prioritize emails for processing:

Priority 1: All emails where you are the only recipient will only be processed by yourself and this is why you should definitely have a look onto these emails as soon as possible.

Priority 2: Emails sent to you and to other recipients might be answered by others as well and you can postpone processing of these emails a little bit to increase the chance that others already will have responded to the email. – On the one hand, this could answer the request completely; on the other hand, this might help to get additional information to answer the request.

Priority 3: Emails send to others but taking you into copy (cc or bcc) only, do not require an answer from your side and processing can be postponed. – I know people who move these emails into the deleted folder right away, but I like to have – at least – a brief look onto all my incoming emails to take an active decision about how to handle my emails.

Based on these assumptions, I am using the following folders to filter my email:

Posteingang (Inbox): This is the base folder of my inbox where new email shows up first. Besides emails from a few important people like my boss as well as my wife, my email software moves all incoming emails to one of the following folders.

01_Inbox_TO_exclusive: Folder for all emails where I am the only recipient. I check this folder whenever I have time.

02_Inbox_TO_others – after lunch only: Folder for all emails where – besides me – also other recipients are named in the TO field. I try to check this folder only after lunch.

03_Inbox_CC – afternoon only: This is the folder where all other emails are moved to. I try to check this folder only in the afternoon. – Yes, “I try to”, but sometimes I am just too curious to wait until afternoon.

In addition, I am using two more folders in my inbox:

To_Be_Processed: Whenever I create a task out of an email and I know that I will need the email to process the task (e.g., in case of necessary answers), I manually move the email to this folder.

Z_Processed: This is my archive folder. I simply move all processed emails to this folder for later reference. – Yes, this results from testing the chaotic email archiving approach I described within my last post. And yes, I am still testing this approach.

This is it! I created some filters in Outlook that move the emails to the different folders as soon as a new email is received.

I am using this strategy since beginning of 2011 and – for me – it works fine so far. If you have different strategies to process your inbox, please feel free to post your experience.

By the way, I was working on two other projects since my last post. This is why it took a little bit longer until I was able to publish this post. If you are interested, please take a look at:

BPinPM.net: This is the website of an initiative of process management experts from several organizations to bring process management experts together and to share process management know how by identifying best practices in the area of process management.

BabyausstattungImPraxistest.de: Our daughter was born in March and my wife and I decided to create a blog to review baby products we are using to share our experience with other parents.

In the past, I had several local files where I stored my current emails as well as my archived emails in a structure that had grown for years. Most of the files were organized based on different projects and had a hierarchy with up to six levels. – To be honest, I was already annoyed when I had to scroll up and down to file a new message in one of the folders which I could not find immediately.

Thus, I decided to do some research to improve my email organization. I googled and read a lot to get ideas about how to organize my emails in the most efficient way.

To sum it up, there are two different approaches: chaotic vs. structured

In the chaotic approach all processed emails are archived in just one folder and emails are retrieved by searching or sorting. – It takes only a second to archive the email but some more seconds to retrieve it.

The structured approach relies on a well-organized (as low as possible) folder structure where it is easier to retrieve emails. – But it takes a longer time to create the folder structure and to archive the email.

To reduce the archiving effort, a filing plug-in for Microsoft Outlook called my attention. Xiant Filer simply suggests folders where you are likely to move email to.

Due to the fact that I am more a structured person, I decided to continue my folder approach with a less complex folder structure and to give Xiant Filer a try to reduce the time for moving my processed emails to the right folder.

After two months of testing, I can confirm that Xiant Filer works well and it really reduces the time I need to file my emails.

Unfortunately, I was not able to keep my simple folder structure and it became more complex from week to week. As a result, I have to scroll up and down again to locate the folder where I filed the email I am looking for.

Thus, I have just decided to give the chaotic approach a try. I am going to move all processed email into just one folder for one or two months to see if this strategy is more efficient for my company inbox. – If it does not work, I can use Xiant Filer to return to my old strategy within a few minutes.

I will keep you updated about the results. Please feel free to post your strategy for organizing your emails.

If you are interested in reading more about this topic, I can recommend to start with a blog post by Maik Preßler on emendatio.org (German) where he referred to a study of IBM Research about „Am I wasting my time organizing email? A study of email refinding.“.

Xiant Filer can be found here: http://www.xiant.com

About two years ago, I met a coach at a conference who told me about the tool TimePanic and I started to use TimePanic to track my time. – In the beginning, it was just for fun, but I continued to track my time because of the interesting insights and I’m still learning a lot about myself, today.

It was quite easy to start: Quickly download and install the software, set up regular working hours as well as current projects and colleagues and simply start to capture all activities.

The tool can be used via a symbol from the task bar or it can remain opened all the time. I prefer to have TimePanic open all the time to get a gentle reminder to capture my working hours without gaps from time to time.

Customized favorites allow you to start frequently used activities with a single click. This makes it easy to activate new activities on the fly in case of incoming calls or externally initiated conversations to be right back for the intruder.

In addition to the “day view” – which is used to capture data – the “year view” provides an overview about the sum of working hours of the different days and the “report view” makes it possible to create much more detailed reports to analyze how many hours you have spent on the different projects within a defined timeframe.

Since I started using TimePanic, the capturing of tasks – which can be done within seconds – quickly became a habit for me and I don’t want to miss the benefits anymore.

The biggest benefit for me is the fact that TimePanic forces me to work in a single-tasking mode. Due to the fact that it is not possible to book time onto different projects in parallel, I’m forced to focus on just one single task at the time. – Changing times can be avoided and the task will receive my undivided attention.

In case of interruptions by colleagues that drop by or in case of incoming phone calls, TimePanic helps me to remember what I did before the interruption occurred.

In addition, frequent “intruders” can be identified and as soon as the colleagues realize that their interruptions are captured, intrusions will be reduced automatically. But this not only helps to reduce interruptions by others, I also gained the insight not to interrupt colleagues for every single question right away. Instead of this, I tend to bundle questions to minimize interruptions, now.

TimePanic also allows to evaluate the different types of activities to improve the daily planning. For example, I learned that I shouldn’t spend more than 2/3 of my time for task processing, because the rest is consumed by administrational tasks such as inbox processing, task management, or conversations that don’t have direct connection to projects.

Last but not least, time tracking with TimePanic helps me to verify my effort estimations on my to-do list, which results in an optimized planning and increases my productivity as well.

TimePanic is available for Windows only and can be installed or runs as portable version on a memory stick. For private use, there is a free version available. To learn more about TimePanic, please visit http://www.timepanic.com.

As soon as you gained some experience with the tool. Please feel free to post your insights!

Mirko

PS: If you are interested in buying the premium version, please consider using my affiliate link: http://tinyurl.com/7fxalgb  ;-)

I know that “living without goals” seems to be state of the art nowadays, but if you are living an a goal-oriented business environment – like I am – where you cannot wake up and just do what you are passionate about, a system to manage yourself will be essential for your success. This is why I recommend to structure your ideas and to make some plans for 2012, now.

This year, I had the chance to do my review already before Christmas which gives me the opportunity to provide you with a step by step guide which I created while doing my planning for 2012.

By the way, the procedure itself is based on my experience in process and quality management in my professional life where we are doing this kind of process every year.

1. Review the last year to see where you are (Yearly Review):
First step is to review the previous year to check what you achieved and to create a starting position for planning the upcoming year.

To get started, check what you planned to achieve in 2011 for example by opening your target mind map. – If you don’t have something in written, we are going to create a mind map for 2012 while doing the next steps.

Now, simply review your 2011 targets and mark all achieved goals to see what you did. – Congratulations! Now breathe and smile!

2. Structure the big picture of your life (Strategic Planning):
Based on the insights of the review, this strategic planning step will support you to structure your ideas by creating a mind map summarizing the things you would like to realize within the next years.

To avoid that you miss something, I recommend starting with a new mind map to structure the big picture of your life. – To ease this step, you can download my SmartSelfManagement.com Compass (zip with xmind file inside, 49kb) as template for your mind map.

If you already have a list of goals (e.g., last year’s targets), check this list and add all open goals you would like to continue working on.

Now, relax and check all areas of your life to write down the things you would like to achieve within the next years (max. 5 to 10 years in the future). – This is the step where you add all your dreams to the mind map!

3. Plan the upcoming year (Tactical Planning):
The target of the tactical planning is to make your plans for the upcoming year more realistic by focusing on a smaller number of goals you would like to achieve and by transforming these goals into smart goals. This will help you to really achieve your goals in 2012.

First, review your “big picture” mind map and select a handful of goals to focus on in 2012. – Too much goals for one year might let you end up with nothing at the end of the year. Try to select only a few goals you really want to achieve in 2012. – Highlight these goals in red!

If necessary, break these goals down into smaller measures that have to be completed to achieve the overall target. E.g., if you have the dream to visit all continents within your life, select just one continent or one country for the upcoming year.

Now make your goals SMART! SMART is the abbreviation for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound and it is often used in the context of project management.

Specific: Try to formulate specific goals and avoid being to general.
Measurable: Make your goal measureable. E.g., “Complete a 10k” instead of “Go jogging”.
Attainable: Make sure that your goal is realistic. Otherwise you will never be able to attain this target.
Relevant: Set goals that are relevant for your life.
Time-bound:  State a date until when you want to accomplish the goal.

Please see wikipedia for detailed explanation of SMART criteria.

After transforming your goals into smart goals you can brainstorm the necessary steps to achieve these targets. Add these steps to your mind map. In addition, I recommend to add timeframes – when to work on these steps – to ease the operational planning.

4. Start to achieve your goals (Operational Planning):
The last step will transfer your plan into the operational task management system to start achieving your goals. – If you don’t have a system in place, you can read my post “Setting up task management”.

Simply identify all the initial steps (only one for each goal) that you have to work on within the next three months and add these to your to-do list.

In addition, you should add a repetitive task to your list to repeat the operational planning at the end of every month to identify the tasks for the upcoming month.

That’s it!

I guess, it will take about 60 to 90 minutes to perform these four steps, but it’s definitely worth doing it! So if you haven’t started yet, take your time and get started with step 1 right now! – If you don’t have a mind map tool on your computer, you can download XMind. It’s free.

If you are interested in a more detailed explanation (e.g., including Personal SWOT Analysis etc.), please subscribe to my blog to be informed about finalization of my smart Self-Management eBook coming out in 2012.

The system bases on my professional experience in the area of quality and process management combined with well-known self-management practices. It is really simple to understand, to implement, and – most important – easy to use.

As consequence, I decided to align the content of my blog with these new insights and from now on I will focus on exactly what I am really good at: Setting up and running a smart and reliable self-management system to manage business and personal life.

To make the focus of my blog more obvious, I have changed the name to SmartSelfManagement.com. On SmartSelfManagement.com I will continue to write about my self-management system approach to share my experience and to offer ideas how to implement a system like this on your own.

To support this implementation, I decided to summarize my approach in a compact way within an eBook. – More about this within the next weeks. Until completion of this eBook, just read about my approach on relaunched SmartSelfManagement.com!

I was really surprised about the similarities to my habits. Even if I try to get up at 5:00 am, compared to her late 6:30 am , I try to make use of the early hours without interruptions by colleagues, incoming calls, or emails. Her advice is to “Wake up half an hour before anyone else” and I can definitely confirm this message. But most interestingly, she mentioned that this head start makes it possible to process emails without receiving answers right away. While reading her post, I realized that I am already using this “feature” without thinking about it for years. Processing emails before others get up really reduces interruptions by incoming answers to your emails.

In addition, after cleaning the inbox in the early morning and after checking the tasks of the day, I have the time AND – most important – the calmness to work on my most important tasks even before other colleagues start working.

Jolie also talked about the downside of getting up early: Early to bed. For sure, this is not easy, but you can get used to it and if you want to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning, you simply have to sleep earlier. Usually, I try to go to bed around 10 pm to get at least six hours of sleep. Yes, to be honest, it is really hard to wake up at 5 am. :-/ To make this easier, I started experimenting with sleep cycle software on my cell phone, but this could be another topic to write about.

Thank you Jolie for sharing your secrets to productivity. Your post made me aware of the power of using the early hours. …and now, it is time to go to bed.

Besides the support of my wife the two tools I am using frequently are my target mind map and my task management system.

About my mind map I have written another post already. Now I would like to take the opportunity to share my task management experience in busy times with you.

- One system for all to-dos: Use only one tool to manage your tasks. This saves time and gives you ONE overview about your to-dos. By the way, I am using Toodledo to manage my tasks.

- Always open, always accessible: Have your task list available all the time to put new to-dos on it without writing these tasks down somewhere else. If I cannot access my to-do list, I send tasks via mail to task feature to Toodledo.

- Register all tasks: Whenever a new task comes up, create a “next action” out of it, estimate the effort, prioritize, and schedule this new to-do. If necessary, register also the tasks which execution would not need more than 5 minutes. If you are really busy, just put everything into the system to have it out of your inbox and out of your mind.

- Scan list for urgent tasks: Check your list from time to time – at least once a day – for urgent to-dos e.g., with deadline today, to make sure that you do not miss something that you should have done.

- Plan task processing: At the end of the day, take a few minutes to check your task list and plan which tasks have to be completed on the next day.

These are the key points that kept me on top of my task during the last weeks. In addition to this, I try to become less busy but sometimes this is hard to realize. This is why I recommend having a reliable task management system in place that supports you during these busy days as a kind of backbone.

For me, using a mind map is much more intuitive and flexible compared to excel sheets. I am really enjoying this very simple visual way of managing my targets and I would like to share this experience with you.

Here are five steps to get started:

1. Open a new mind map and put “My Targets” into the middle.

2. Add the areas (e.g., health, finance, education, relationships) you would like to manage as new sub topics. To get a little bit more structure, add additional sub topics to these areas (e.g., within health I added the sub areas “sport”, “immunization”, and “checkups”).

3. Within these areas or sub areas, add the target you would like to achieve (e.g., “complete a marathon” in the area “health – sport”).

4. Afterwards, brainstorm possible steps to achieve the targets. If you like to, you can also add time frames or other additional information to the measures.

5. Finally, add the “next action” to achieve the first of the steps of every target to your task list to get it started!

Congratulations, this is it!

From now on, you can simply work on the tasks within your task management and add the next activity as soon as you complete the current one.

In addition, I review my target mind map on a monthly basis to check if I am on track and if I have to add new “next actions” to my task management.

The only things you need – to get started with this methodology – are a sheet of paper and a pen. To have it a bit more comfortable, I recommend using a mind mapping tool. I started with XMind. – It’s free!

This is what I learned and how I process feedback today:

1. Take the feedback without discussing it. Just listen, take the person serious, and say “Thank you!”. If possible, try to write the feedback down to look it up later.

2. In case of negative feedback, do not defend yourself. Accept the opinion of the other person – this does not mean to agree to the feedback itself – and ask for ideas to improve from the other ones point of view. Try to benefit from the feedback without being offended.

3. Explain that you will think about the feedback to improve yourself and – again – say “Thank you!”.

4. Take some minutes with yourself to lean back, breath, and think about the feedback. Try to filter the feedback, delete all emotions and identify the main points of the feedback. For complex feedback, I recommend to use a mind map to structure your thoughts.

5. Decide, if you want to do something about these main points. If yes, think about measures to improve and integrate these measures into your planning or your todo-list.

6. Think about a response to the person who provided the feedback. If you developed measures for improvement, the person might be happy to hear about it.

If you can not understand the feedback, decide if it makes sense to re-contact the person to explain that you thought about it but can not comprehend the given opinion. – This can be the starting position for a more detailed feedback to think about. But be careful to avoid an infinite loop.

7. Finally, I recommend to archive the feedback. If you scan it, you can “dispose” the paper version of the feedback literally to complete feedback processing.

What do you think about this procedure? Can you provide me feedback to improve?