Chapter 6 explains how to identify each item in my in basket and determine what to do with it. The idea is that while going through my in basket, I will decide what should be trashed, complete anything that takes less-than-two-minutes to complete, delegate what I can, sort items into my own organizing system reminders of actions that require more than two minutes, and identify items that are projects.
I think the processing guidelines described in Chapter 6 are quite interesting. The guidelines say I must process the top item first, process one item at a time, and never put anything back into “in.” I can see why these processing guidelines exist as I would certainly break them all. I can easily see coming across items I don’t want to have to deal with or don’t know what to do with and putting them to the bottom of the stack. I can also see trying to deal with multiple items at the same time just to try to save time. I think David must have quite a bit of experience walking people through this process. He seems to understand exactly what I am going to do wrong before I even start the process. I really believe if I follow all the steps David has outlined, I will be successful in getting organized and having a solid plan to keep me organized in the future. This may actually get me much closer to being stress free.
-Diane Halweg