Very not long ago on a blog very not far away (here), I wrote about how the natural tendency to create multiple task piles is basically a way to cook up a three-course meal of confusion, anxiety, and hefty serving of disappointment for dessert.

This is not a dinner that tastes very good, but you may choke it down often if you don’t get a grip on your tendency to make multiple piles of task lists.

In this post, I’m going to talk about the number one place we like to squirrel extra task lists (email), and more generally, the problem of letting your inbox get out of control.

Inbox petri dishes

Taking care of an email inbox is like taking care of a swimming pool. It takes constant effort and sometimes difficult (though short-lasting) decisions to keep it clean. And like a swimming pool, it never stays clean for long. If you go on vacation for a week, both will greet you with a disgusting mess upon your return.

Not unlike a swimming pool, if not maintained, an email inbox will rapidly turn into a breeding ground for an undesirable, crufty mess. With swimming pools, we're fighting the arrival of bacteria via the atmosphere. In an inbox, the threat comes from the constant arrival of unsolicited, ambiguous crud that we often too kindly call "information."

[Photo by Éole via Flicker]

Let's simplify

Goal: Let's make life a lot simpler by not letting email be a task system. Instead, let's just make email itself a task.

Yes, email, or more specifically, checking email is simply a task. Nothing more. And if done correctly, it should require about the same level of brain power as taking your kitchen garbage to the road. In fact, processing email involves mostly taking out garbage anyway.

The more finite the time boundary around this super simple task, the better. Dedicate yourself to processing email, sorting the good from the junk, and move on with your day.

One of the greatest side effects of Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero concept is that, by processing your inbox to zero, you automatically avoid the pitfall of creating a tangled knot of tasks within email.

I really believe that email should remain a communication system first and foremost and not be allowed to turn into a petri dish of anxiety-inducing, ambiguous information.

Be an effective human filter

I outlined my email system in an earlier post. I’ll repost the graphic, which depicts my personal adaption of Inbox Zero:

The key is making the black circle go to zero every time you enter your inbox. For me, 99.9% of information that lands in my inbox can be definitively routed to one of the branches shown above.

Email inboxes should not be task piles, but tasks can certainly originate in an email inbox. The key is not allowing tasks to stay in email, and more importantly don’t let tasks get duplicated in email and your task system.

When you complete a task, ideally you should only have to check it off in one place. If you’re checking things off in two or more places, you’re making things harder on yourself than they need to be. Give yourself a break. Simplify, easy-fy.

Practically efficient tips for avoiding inbox task lists

• If you get an email that requires you to do something, make a task to do that thing, then archive or delete the message.

• If a message requires a response but an action is needed first, make a task like “Count beans in container and reply to Bob.” That way, you clear your inbox, focus on the actionable aspect of the email, and ensure you respond. The email from Bob doesn't junk up your inbox while you procrastinate over counting beans. Remember, archived email is always just a quick search away.

• Avoid emailing yourself reminders. Try to put thoughts and tasks that pop into your head somewhere else – like Evernote, Simplenote, or even straight into your task system.  For me, that's Remember the Milk.

• Make pacts with yourself over and over. Having a clean inbox is more about maintaining a habit – consistently making small decisions to rid your most frequented hub of clutter.

• Recognize that if an email has been sitting in your inbox for more than a day and it distracts you each time you glance at it, it's probably a task. It needs to be on your task list.

You

Share your own tricks for averting the natural tendency of letting your email inbox turn into a stress-inducing task list.

Email was a trendy topic in the 1990s. It was damn cool. How cool? AOL’s then-catchy “you’ve got mail” was so chic, it inspired a freakin’ movie of the same name. Yeah, a movie about email with high-profile stars. That movie hit theaters in 1998. A lot has changed since. Cell phones went from analog to James Bond. 9/11. The Red Sox won the World Series twice. An African American became president of the United States. We had a bad recession, then a “Great” one.

Yes, so much as changed. And so much hasn't.

Like what? Well, email for one thing. Like cockroaches scurrying about in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, I think email messages would (and have) survived equally disruptive technological events.

Sure email is passé and the phrase “you’ve got mail” is about as sexy as the AOL bloatware preloaded on a Best Buy PC, but it ain’t going anywhere. Some folks (including yours truly) have even been so bold as to declare email past its prime – a technology that will soon exit the mainstream as people embrace more social forms of communication like the now-terminal Google Wave.

In reality, nothing could be more untrue. Email is going nowhere.

Even with the rise of social media, email is still by far, FAR the most common form of electronic communication. If anything, social networking may be increasing the email habit.

Yeah, you’ve still got mail

You’ve just got a whole hell of a lot more than you did in 1998.

A recent Merkle study [PDF] indicates that social media users are actually more (not less) likely to use email.

Nielsen reports that email is hands down the most popular mobile activity – blowing away social media by a healthy margin. As more and more people trade in their flip phones for iPhones and Android handsets, we should expect mobile email usage to increase even more.

And a survey from Xobni makes it clear that email is a top priority even while on vacation and in bed. About two out of three of us check email outside of regular business hours.

What does email mean to you?

Before you think I’m crazy for asking such a seemingly inane question, consider that email is probably the most frequently occurring activity in your day. It’s probably second only to breathing. You check email way more than you go to the bathroom. Hell, you probably check it there too.

In 1998, an article like this would have been unimaginable. It would have been impossible to fathom that we would be not only this bombarded by so much information, we would seek it throughout the day.

Fact: if you are a typical representative of the connected world in 2010, email defines a significant part of your day – seven days a week. It rules your business day, affects your personal time, and to some extent, it probably affects your dreams.

Just in the last week, I saw a guy on a Harley checking his Blackberry at a red light. I also saw a guy “multitasking” at a urinal.

That’s right. Email is so important now that you would risk wetting your pants so that one hand can check your business email while the other takes care of your business.

Twelve years ago, two-legged mammals didn’t pee at their mailbox. And a guy on a Harley wouldn’t have written his pen pal at a red light.

As I said above, email is passé. But that’s part of the problem -- along with the fact that email is available on every electronic device we touch. We’re so conditioned to let email drip into our system that we don’t even think to question it.

To my knowledge, there are few, if any, schools and businesses that provide education on the art of email management. (Let me know if you know of any.) Instead, there is an implicit social assumption that email is a fact of life. It’s assumed that if email can be improved, it will happen through software refinements.

Let me tell you a secret. Email enlightenment won’t be found through software innovation. No way. Rather, salvation from email will happen when you reformat the solid state memory between your ears.

Resign, then improve

You can’t “produce” a good or service and email at the same time unless your job title is something like “Reply All Technician” Are you a RAT? I didn’t think so.

Moreover, you can’t (sanely) work in an environment where someone is always tapping on your shoulder. If you let your email client poke you in the ribs every time a new message arrives, that’s the working hell you’re allowing to occur.

It’s just a fact of life: You can email, or you can do other things. You can’t do both – at least not well, and if you’re still reading this, I’m guessing you like to do things well.

Again, what does email mean to you?

Does it mean more than your job title?

Does it mean more to you than your family?

Does it mean more to you than catching some friendly fire at a urinal?

You’ll surely answer “no” to all of the above questions, but perhaps there is a disconnect between what you want email to mean to you and what your actions say? Believe me, in this case, the writer is as guilty as the reader. I’m talking to myself as much as you.

Where are we going from here?

It makes sense to take a very hard look at email habits.

Being practically efficient means looking for the biggest bang first. We can gain the most by seeking efficiencies in our most frequent activities. Even small refinements to things that occur a lot will add up to significant gains.

This article was intended to be a “step 1” article. Step 1 is about the recognition of an opportunity. If you can reclaim even a fraction of the time you spend in email, you will instantly begin accreting more of the most valuable human asset of all: time.

That’s time you can spend being more productive, more focused, more loving, happier, and, if nothing else, being more clear-headed and in control of your day.

I've already done some writing on email strategies, and I'm planning to do a lot more. I'd be very interested in hearing your personal strategies in the comments.

[Photo by exfordy via Flicker]

Not long ago, I wrote a productivity series called “Note to self.” In one of the posts, I talked about how priorities are, in my opinion, a much better way to sort tasks by importance than due dates.

I think of priorities as being a common thread that links all of my current projects and activities together. No matter the context or location, some tasks are more important than others.

I find that it’s very useful to be able to see all of your priorities in one location so that they are easily and routinely reviewed.

Having a single “dashboard” view helps me avoid one of the worst pitfalls of list making: having multiple piles of priorities.

It’s so easy to fall this trap, and rarely is it obvious as it happens. It’s easy because it happens naturally. Like a squirrel hiding nuts, I think our natural instincts drive us to create piles of to-do lists all over the place – both large and small.

But unlike a squirrel, the more nuts you crack and the fewer you hide, the better off you’ll be this winter. Actually, you’ll be in great shape year-round.

Why things get squirrelly when you make multiple piles

There are really three problems with having more than one task list. Hopefully these seem obvious:

Problem 1. Having more than one list introduces an extra decision: which list do I work on now?

If you have more than one list, you’ve effectively added an additional dimension of complexity to your productivity workflows. It’s no longer enough to work off a task list – you need to know which one to attack next, it’s physical location, and it’s relative importance to your other lists.

Picking the next list requires that you allocate some amount of energy and focus to that task -- picking the list. You may not even realize you’re making this decision, but if, for example, you’ve ever been momentarily torn between working through a list of flagged email versus working on a project, you have.

I suspect for many people, this extra decision happens throughout the day. I’ve been there. It’s like trying to get things done wearing ankle weights.

Problem 2. If you have more than one list, you never really know how done you are.

This can really suck, especially if you’re managing the same project on more than one list. It’s a sure way to introduce anxiety and disappointment in your workflows: anxiety from wondering where you stand on things; disappointment when you discover you missed something important on the other list(s).

Problem 3. The more lists you have, the more likely you’ve put the same thing on two or more of them.

This also induces anxiety because you’re consistently confronting yourself with lists that look bigger than they really are. Moreover, it’s pain in the ass to have to check the same thing off two or more times.

Where are these lists, and how do they occur?

If you don’t have all of your tasks in one central location, you’re probably making multiple piles. Essentially you’ve created more than one task system.

Maybe it’s obvious – you like to tinker and have half your tasks in Things and others in OmniFocus. Or maybe you just use an electronic system but your monitor is covered in sticky notes too.

I’m not trying to tell you that you’re a bad person or that you’re wrong. But am telling you that life is a lot simpler if your to-do list is in one place.

When you have 10 things listed, and you check one off, you know you have 9 left. And if you’re effectively using priorities, you know that the next one in line is more important than the other 8.

On the other hand, if you have more than one pile, somewhere in your mind, you know that there’s more to do. It nags, gnaws, and nibbles at your sanity robbing you of focus that’s better spent on things outside to-do lists.

[Photo by William K. via Flicker]

A practically efficient approach to simplifying your task lists

1. Learn to identify hidden lists.
2. Consolidate multiple lists into one.
3. Stand guard and leverage the clarity you experience from having a single list. Stay in the habit of zapping future lists as they bloom (and they will).

This stuff is really more art than science, and much of this post is intentionally vague because I recognize that there are so many task systems available to humankind in the 21st century.

But if there is an underlying, universal theme to my message here, it’s this:

Simplifying the overarching GTD layer that you impose on your workflows generally makes you better.

Personal task and project management comes with a cost: it has to be maintained. Make sure you’re not overspending your time and focus on this layer.

Believe me when I say that the easier you make it on yourself to digest priorities, the more likely you are to act on them and bring your future and past self in harmony.

In 1955, historian and writer Cyril Parkinson wrote that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

This maxim ultimately became labeled Parkinson’s Law after he later published a collection of essays on the concept.

Parkinson’s original focus was on rate of bureaucratic expansion over time. (Let’s face it. They tend to get bigger, not smaller.)

[Photo by Julia Manzerova via Flicker]

Fifty-five years after being first uttered, I think Parkinson’s Law is more relevant than ever.

Spotting bureaucracies

What’s interesting to me is that not only have existing bureaucracies expanded greatly in the last half-century, the occurrence of them has as well. They are becoming more prevalent in even the most granular element of a society: the individual.

Let’s look at the definition of bureaucracy.

I think those of us with zeal for efficiency and productivity can unintentionally impose bureaucracies on our own workflows. Modern task/productivity systems make it really easy to create the illusion of prosperity in the present by over-leveraging the time of our future selves.

The result? Some productivity systems probably make us less productive and certainly less agile. But that's not the worst problem.

Is your system making you better?

If so, how do you define better? Are you getting more done? How do you know?

Let’s say you are getting more done. How are you spending that new found time? Getting even more done? If you’re reading this, most likely, you are. I’m guilty here too. I mean really guilty.

By one study’s measure, at the turn of the 21st century, US workers needed to only work eleven hours to match the productivity of their 1950s versions.

Indeed, productivity has increased exponentially since the 1950s. We're probably working smarter than ever per hour. But we're also working way more hours.

Is Parkinson’s Law keeping us in a working hell of sorts?

Take some gains

If you never cash in on the time you save through your productivity system, you’ll lose it. Remember that, unlike money, time can only be saved so long. Time is one of the most precious human endowments, but you can’t bequeath it. In the end, we spend it all.

How do you fight Parkinson's Law and make sure that you spend some of your saved time on the purely unproductive enjoyment of life?

MarkdownMail is a very cool little app that lets you compose emails in Markdown and convert to HTML right on your iOS device. It works exactly as advertised. You can write or paste a chunk of Markdown text, preview it in HTML, then send. Bonus: It even supports TextExpander touch.

While I often write in Markdown and MultiMarkdown in Simplenote, I never thought about doing the file conversion on an iOS device (until now). MarkdownMail provides a whole new world of possibilities by giving you a Markdown converter that goes everywhere you go.

Beyond its obvious use (sending HTML-based emails to people), MarkdownMail provides a nifty way to make HTML-formatted blog posts from your iOS device.

While some blog platforms like Tumblr will convert Markdown to HTML for you, most don’t. But many blog platforms will accept HTML and post it as-is.

I can envision a mobile workflow where you write in Simplenote and use MarkdownMail to do the file conversion.

At only $1.99, MarkdownMail is probably a must-have productivity app for the mobile web writer. If you come up with a creative use for MarkdownMail, share it in the comments.

Thanks to John Gruber for sharing the link to MarkdownMail.

If you’re a productivity geek like me, you probably already use more than one web browser. If not, I highly recommend it (even if you’re aren’t a geek). It may sound very multitaskish to use multiple browsers, but I find that it actually helps me be more productive by keeping certain activities in silos.

Since starting fresh with a new MacBook Pro recently, I’ve moved to Safari as my default browser. And for a while now, I’ve been using Chrome as my secondary browser.

Where’s Firefox, you ask?

Firefox was my default browser of choice for years, but I’ve recently decided that the speed and stability of Safari are worth more than the extensibility of Firefox.

In fact, I began to notice that Firefox extensions were hurting my productivity. They constantly receive updates, which slow down browser launch. And some extensions like StumbleUpon are like having a social media crack dealer sitting on your toolbar 24/7. These have no place on a productivity machine.

How I use Chrome

In my opinion, Chrome has supplanted Firefox as the best third-party browser available. Chrome launches fast as lightnin’ and now has virtually as many extensions as Firefox (if you’re into extensions).

I use Chrome as my communications and task management browser. I use it exclusively for:

• Gmail, Google Calendar, and other Google services
• Remember the Milk tasks
• Social media (Twitter, etc.)

Benefits of my two-browser approach:

• Google services run great in Chrome. This should be shocking to no one since Google makes Chrome.

• I can stay signed out of Google in Safari, where I do most of my Google searching. While I do have web history turned off for my Google account, I’m still more comfortable knowing that every single Google search I make isn’t attached to my username. (Of course, I’m sure Google already knows more about me than I know about myself, so this is probably being overly paranoid.)

• I have Chrome configured to launch Gmail and Remember the Milk in two separate tabs every time I open Chrome. For me, this makes Chrome feel like a productivity application. If I need to check email, set events on my calendar, or manage tasks, they’re always in the same place.

• By keeping email and tasks in a dedicated browser, they don’t get buried in my Safari tabs. I’m also not as tempted to check email while I’m doing research or reading in Safari.

• Like email, by doing 99% of my social media things in Chrome, I stay more focused in Safari. I’m not tempted to check my Twitter timeline, etc.

• The only extension (other than 1Password) that I use in Chrome is Chromed Bird. It’s really the best “desktop” Twitter app I’ve found. It gives me a simple, dedicated spot to use Twitter on my MacBook Pro if I want to. I use my iPad and mobile devices for most of my tweeting these days though. Note: I recommend turning off all the alert settings in Chromed Bird; otherwise, it will peck you to death at inopportune times.

I really think dedicating specific web browsers to specific tasks boosts productivity – especially by keeping communication services out of the way in your primary browser.

What about you…

Do you use multiple browsers? If so, which ones and how? Let me know in the comments.

I’d also like to figure out a way to add an “Open in Safari” option for links that I encounter in Chrome. Currently, I accomplish this by right-clicking links in Chrome and copying the link address. Then I paste the link into LaunchBar.

I’m sure this process could be streamlined with a simple Chrome extension. If you have ideas, please share.

James Shelley recently wrote a very thought-provoking piece on the concept of success. I attempted several times to provide a block quote from this marvelous article, but I decided that it wouldn’t do it justice. I recommend reading the whole thing.

To me, true, pure success falls into two main categories:

1. As an individual, you experience the feeling of success through progress. Life is a series of tweaks and refinements. It’s about being a little better each day and seeking fulfillment in the means you take to your end. Voids always succeed the attainment of material goals.
2. As a member of the human race, success is ultimately defined by your ability to help others feel successful and important.

Ultimately, the more you view success as a collection of experiences, not objects, the better off you are.

Photo via floridahistory.org

At this point, Google’s “20 percent time” system is pretty well known and actually pretty old in internet time. In the words of a Google engineer in 2006:

The 20 percent time is a well-known part of our philosophy [at Google], enabling engineers to spend one day a week working on projects that aren’t necessarily in our job descriptions. You can use the time to develop something new, or if you see something that’s broken, you can use the time to fix it.

It’s also been hotly debated on various blogs and web forums the last few years.

Recently, Chris Trimble at the Harvard Business Review blog voiced his opinion and stirred things up a bit again. Chris asserts that the “free time” policy is more of a myth than a viable option for most companies:

It’s probably best to view Google’s stated policy with at least some mild skepticism. Does Google really live up to its 20 percent ideal? I’m sure the company is delighted that their 20 percent philosophy has become so well known and so readily accepted as reality. It must be terrific for recruiting. But I think it is most likely that 20 percent time is an ideal the company aspires to but finds very difficult to live up to in practice, even with their seemingly boundless resources — a luxury most companies can’t even imagine.

The main part of Chris’s argument is based on his belief that free time might generate a lot of ideas, but few, if any, of them will likely see production. As such, allocating one-fifth of employees’ time to exploring their individual ideas would be too costly to the bottom line.

If you know me, you’ll probably guess correctly that I don’t accept this view.

How we got here

Much of the economic landscape is still based on a factory approach to producing goods and services. It’s tempting to think this has been around forever, but it’s really not that old. Seth Godin articulates the concept of the factory culture well in his book Linchpin.

The factory approach began in Great Britain in the 18th century and ultimately spread to the rest of western civilization via the Industrial Revolution.

Though most of us don’t work along side steam engines and coal cars, we’re still driven by the forces of the Industrial Revolution, which effectively mechanized the western labor force. Sky scrapers, in many cases, are simply modern factories. Workers are expected to come in at specific times, leave at specific times, and generate constant “product” while their butts are in a seat.

Time is no longer money

The problem with the factory worker mindset today is that the “goods” we produce are far less tangible than textiles. Can you describe what you do in five words or less? No, not your job title. What do you do?

Fifty years ago, it would have been “I mine coal” or “I assemble cars.” Today it’s “I analyze marketing strategies for…” [BUZZZ]. Sorry, five word max.

Because of this modern abstraction, most knowledge workers find themselves at odds with their factory work structure. Any given 20 percent of a knowledge worker’s day is not always equal to another.

In other words, productivity time is not nearly as linear as it was in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. You can’t simply say that two hours equals ten widgets anymore. In today’s work environment, two hours could be spent

• on a conference call that ends with friendly goodbyes but no definitive course of action,
• mindlessly answering emails that each generate five more,
• drafting a viral idea that transforms a company from the ground up, or
• carrying out an infinite number of other intangible events triggered by ever changing dynamics of information, priorities, and inspiration.

Right now, do you even know what you’re about to do for the next two hours?

“Money” is just not proportional to time anymore. Time is still required of course, but it’s merely an ingredient for something more important – something that is money: creativity.

From mining ore to mining ideas

Being an effective modern worker means being creative. And to be brutally honest, the only way to be creative is to be an expressive individual. Machine cogs are not creative. They fit together with other machine parts, serve their specific purpose while in use, and then get replaced as needed.

This system works great as long as cogs are in high demand – like they were for much of the last hundred years. But times have changed.

It’s no surprise that the younger members of Gen X and probably all members of Gen Y have become disillusioned with the factory structure. They’ve endured countless stories of their parents’ and grandparents’ frustrations with their companies in the latter part of the 20th century – a time when company loyalty died.

Cogs just aren’t needed so much anymore because we’re on the tail end of the Industrial Revolution era in human history.

A time for idea whores

As I said above, time is not money. Today, time is far more valuable than money and certainly more scarce.

In this new era, people create value not by showing up and falling in line but by using their time to make new ideas. Ideas have always been the driving force behind innovation and human progress.

People have always had ideas, but in modern times, ideas are a little more special. Today, ideas can mate with each other at astonishing rates.

In the words of Matt Ridley, progress occurs when ideas have sex. Today, knowledge promiscuity is at levels never seen before. As such, the curve of progress has gone from a gentle upward slope to a nearly vertical line.

One hundred years ago, successful companies were those in which workers took and consistently executed uniform instructions just like the worker next to them and the worker two down from them. Successful modern companies, on the other hand, are idea brothels.

Look at Google and Apple, and tell me that ideas don’t create wealth. Creativity only works for software and web companies, you say? That, my friend, is a dangerously old fashioned idea. Creativity is universal in its ability to drive prosperity.

So is 20 percent time worth it?

I don’t think it matters so much how much time a company gives its employees for creative endeavors. It’s more important just to foster a culture that embraces creativity.

Companies that suppress creativity will stifle some of their greatest assets and eventually fall behind competitors who allow this new vein of capital to bubble to the surface of the enterprise.

Along with embracing creativity, I think companies should also realize that not all time is equal, as I said above. Powerful ideas can come out in really short bursts. I’ve had some of my best ones in the span of only a few minutes.

I’ve spent much of my career in a corporate “factory” environment. Fortunately, however, I’ve had the freedom to take my own path to solving problems.

Despite working in a fairly rigid corporate environment, the majority of my paid successes were based on times I walked a different path or created a priority of my own, then acted on it. In other words, the company benefited from me being an individual who took creative time on the clock.

Chris Trimble is right that ideas have to be put to work to realize value. But ideas can’t be put to work if they’re never created. And ideas can’t be created without creative time – whether that time is created by individuals on their own or given to them by an employer.

Keep mining, but lose the hard hat

Perhaps companies should look at creative ideas just like any other natural resource. They’re rarely useful in their raw state. They require molding, purification, and especially combination with other resources to fully realize value.

Just like when you mine ore, there is a lot of crap that gets thrown out. This is a “cost” of doing business, but remember that cost is falling fast in the context of ideas. The cost of idea failure is approaching zero at an incremental level.

And remember that math is on your side the more ideas you create. Even if only 3% of ideas are successful, the number of successful ideas you generate always goes up the more raw idea ore you mine.

Yes, the number of failures rises too. But successful people and companies are rarely remembered for the number of times they tripped on their journey to success. Ask any one-hit wonder. The roar from a grand slam can echo for generations, so swing hard and swing often.

For all the increases in productivity computers brought mainstream society in the last thirty years, I think the there are two fundamental functions that stand out as the most game-changing:

1. Cut/copy/paste
2. Undo

These features are so common, so mundane, so boring, it’s easy to take them for granted. They are definitely the most pervasive and universal software features I can think of. Virtually all programs allow cut/copy/paste and undo whether you’re on a Mac, in Windows, or in Linux.

Both undo and cut/copy/paste are involuntary muscles in your workflows. They’re as basic as a heartbeat or a breath of air. They happen naturally without you having to think about them.

But if you do think about them for a moment, they are quite a powerful pair. And in many ways, they represented the first step away from the natural, physical world into virtual worlds.

It would be great if we had an undo button for “real life” – you know, that endearing term we assign to events occurring in the spaces between our screens. But we don’t. We also can’t clone and move physical objects with a click or tap of our finger.

So the introduction of cut/copy/paste and undo was, in many ways, remarkable. They represent true and lasting innovation.

I’m going to talk a little about how I use these taken-for-granted features in obvious and not-so-obvious ways (e.g. automating MultiMarkdown writing workflows).

But more importantly, I would like you to think about how you could better leverage these and other mundane aspects of your workflow to create new and powerful efficiencies.

Oops

The basic undo button is a great way to get out of jams. You can almost always backtrack whether you’re in a spreadsheet, word processor, or text editor. Even browser-based blog editors have undo features now. Command-Z is second nature.

Undo can also be used to make quick ad hoc comparisons. For example, using undo/redo in a spreadsheet is a handy way to see the impact on results before and after a change.

We are starting to see more sophisticated forms of undo emerge. Versioning is one example. My favorite versioning service is Dropbox. Dropbox tracks every little micro change you make when saving files and allows you to restore previous states with a few clicks. Google Docs provides similar versioning.

And if you think about it, every time you make a backup of your system or files, you’re also creating an undo option. The ability to instantly jump out of a corner you’ve been painted into is very empowering.

The best part about undo is its safety net nature. It lets you take greater risks in your workflows and focus on moving forward without the fear that you can’t go back.

Being calculating is good, but it’s also an impediment to progress.

Being practically efficient with cut/copy/paste

I don’t think you can overuse cut/copy/paste. It can be used to transfer anything from a single character of text to an entire novel rich with photos and fancy fonts.

Here are a few ways that you can wring a few more droplets of value out of cut/copy/paste:

• Avoid human RAM syndrome – a condition where people temporarily and unnecessarily store numbers and text in their heads while working at a computer. If you need to compare a number to another, copy one number into a little text file and align it next to the other window. You’ll be amazed at how much clearer your mind is when doing this.

• Use clipboard history tools. I personally use LaunchBar’s clipboard history. Being able to copy several disjointed chunks of text and then paste them in any order is a boon to productivity. I use it like crazy when writing web content with links.

• Combine cut/copy/paste with TextExpander. Use the clipboard variable to insert the last-copied bit of text in a snippet.

Here’s an example of how I use the last two points to speed up writing in MultiMarkdown:

I do almost all of my web writing in MultiMarkdown. I use TextExpander and LaunchBar to insert links really fast. It’s something I do a lot, so I wanted the most streamlined method possible.

Before I found MultiMarkdown, I was accustomed to normal blog editors and word processors – both of which let you highlight a word, then click some button to paste a link. In a lot of ways, this feels more natural to me because I usually don’t know what I want to hyperlink until I’ve written it.

I wanted to replicate this process in MultiMarkdown. Here’s how I do it:

For starters, set up a TextExpander snippet that expands to:

[%clipboard](%|)

I use “mmc” as my snippet.

1. Type text that you want to hyperlink (happens naturally as you write)
2. Go copy the URL (e.g. from your web browser)
3. Come back to your text, and select the part you want to hyperlink, and copy it (Command-C).
4. Type “mmc” – to trigger the TextExpander snippet. This turns “some text” into [some text]() and puts your cursor between the ().
5. Finally, I just drop the link in the slot using LaunchBar’s clipboard history (Command-\).

It will blow your mind how fast this goes in practice:

1. Select text
2. Copy URL
3. Type “mmc”
4. Paste URL

I have similar snippets set up to bold and italicize text:

mmb: **%clipboard**
mme: *%clipboard*

Select, copy, type snippet.

Again, I think it’s more natural to highlight something you’ve already typed, then apply formatting. It’s like painting the text with a brush.

Assume nothing, trust no one

Okay, really just that first part. I guess I got carried away.

I would encourage you to ponder more of the mundane tools in your workflow toolbox. Spend some time taking nothing for granted. You might find a whole new set of workflow condiments that have been hiding right in your cupboard.

If you have any stories of how you made something mundane into something remarkable (even if it is totally specific to your workflow), share it in the comments.

Update: After using Priority Inbox for a few weeks, I've discovered that it didn't really add a lot of value to my email workflow. If it helps yours, great. I'm leaving this post up to show what was on my mind when Priority Inbox first debuted.

***

In my opinion, Google revolutionized email by bundling conversations in Gmail, and it looks like Google may be about the write the next chapter in email management with priority inbox.

I have been using a system that represents about 50% of the total solution priority inbox looks to provide.

The goal of my system is inbox zero, and my mobile devices are on the front lines in the battle to protect my inbox.

I triage probably 80% of my email with my phone and iPad. When I have a chance to check email, I rarely spend much time on the checking part.

Rather than trying to read everything, I scan. Then I star and archive anything that may need a closer look. Everything else either goes directly into archive or gets deleted on the spot.

When I get back to a full web browser, I open gmail, and all of my starred messages are sitting in a secondary inbox below my main inbox. This extra inbox is made possible by "multiple inboxes," a feature you can activate by going to Settings > Labs.

I have my secondary inbox dedicated to showing starred archived email using the query "is:starred".

This segregates “action required” email from unprocessed email in my inbox.

I’ve been using this system for over a year now with very little modification. It just works really well for me.

Priority inbox looks like it may supplant the need for multiple inboxes, which is fine by me.

That gray area between spam and stuff I want

Sorry if that heading made you throw up a little but, but I promise I'm not talking about food. Thank God.

I’m actually talking about the most promising feature in priority inbox: the ability for Gmail to let the cream of your messages rise to the top.

There are so many, many, many emails that I get weekly that aren’t really spam but are very low priority. Examples include store discounts/coupons, newsletters, and account statement alerts. I archive or delete most of these on the spot, but I can envision a more efficient system where these all go into a low priority pile and get reviewed on a less fequent basis.

Priority inbox will supposedly "learn" which emails are most important to you and put those at the top of your inbox. Lower priority emails will fall to the bottom.

The bigger picture

Time will tell how well priority inbox works and whether it can be trusted, but the concept is very appealing. I think it makes sense for Google to continue to refine something they already do really well: email.

I find it interesting that Google announced priority inbox right on the heels of announcing Google Wave's certain death.  Fact: Google Wave was never going to replace email. Email is just too rooted in the workflow psyches of the First World.

But email can get better through refinements and user-specific extensions. I think that’s what we’re seeing happen now. Email isn't going away; it's going to get smarter.

Are you using priority inbox already? What do you think about it?

Since first being introduced to it a few years ago, I’ve always liked the concept of mind mapping. I find that it’s the most efficient way to get ideas down onto paper – ideas that never arrive in a linear fashion.

A mind map can be like a thought laxative. Once it gets going, watch out – but in a really good way.

That said, I’ve always struggled with when to use mind maps and how to leverage those that I create. Taking notes in meetings where I don’t have an iPad or computer is probably my most common use of mind maps. Other times, the mood just strikes me – like when I just need to escape from a screen.

Mind mapping on paper

Mind maps are easy to create on paper. That’s the good part. The not-so-good is that paper-based mind maps don’t lend themselves to portability and pliability. To get the most out of paper mind map, you need to rework the information captured in its web at some point.

Often, my paper mind maps result in a collection of tasks and reference material. I’ll usually put little boxes to next to each task. Sometimes that’s enough, and I’ll just begin working off that list.

Other times, I’ll manually type up tasks, reference information, and other ideas on the map so that they’re in an electronic format and can funnel into a dashboard with my other tasks and projects.

It’s this re-entry step that introduces the most inefficiency in a workflow precipitated by mind mapping. What if we could reduce the inefficiency of this re-entering step? What if we could eliminated it completely?

Thanks to the iPad, we can.

The iPad as a mind mapping tool

I was initially skeptical of mind mapping on the iPad. Could the interface really be frictionless enough to let me get ideas down fast and link them with the same ease as pen and paper? Can it really be productive, or is it just “fun” to do?

If you use an app called iThoughtsHD, the answer is yes.

The interface of iThoughtsHD is extremely intuitive and fluid. Creating nodes, moving them around, editing, etc. are all very natural and easy to do. There’s really no learning curve at all.

But in mind my that’s not the biggest selling point of iThoughtsHD.

Just because you can do something differently, shouldn’t in itself mean you should do that thing differently. In this case, we should be asking the question: What can I do with an iPad that I can’t do with pen and paper?

Back to those two Ps I just mentioned: portability and pliability. . .

The kicker:

iThoughtsHD is integrated with Dropbox, the brilliantly designed syncing service that is quickly becoming the de facto file system for the iPad. iThoughtsHD not only lets you quickly create mind maps, it lets you save them in a variety of formats.

Any of those options can be saved right into Dropbox. As soon as you connect to the internet with your Mac, PC, or other device, your maps are sitting right there waiting for you to edit further, copy information into / out of, or just reference.

FreeMind, the popular open source mind mapping application that works on both Macs and PCs, has been my electronic mind mapping tool of choice for a while. iThoughtsHD supports going to and from FreeMind’s format with ease. It also supports a number of other formats listed under the Export menu.

iPad apps that can access Dropbox score big points with me. As people increasingly use more and more electronic hardware, we have a greater need for instant data portability. That’s the niche Dropbox fills so beautifully.

Throw another one in the content creation column

Mind maps are a great example of how the iPad’s interface can be used to “invite” creative thinking more effectively than a traditional computer with a keyboard and mouse. The fact that your mind maps can swiftly travel from iPad to traditional computer makes it even more inviting.

In short, mind mapping is just another example of how the iPad can be used as a “content creation” tool.

Are you mind mapping on the iPad? What app(s) are you using?

At midnight tonight, 2010 will be 66.58% over. That fact should raise at least one of two questions in your mind: 1) where the hell has the year gone? and/or 2) why is he being that specific? I don’t have a good answer to either question unfortunately. Speaking of unsolicited specificity:

In common years no other month starts on the same day of the week as August, though in leap years February starts on the same day. -Wikipedia

Okay, enough of that.

On a much more practical note, August was the highest traffic month ever recorded in Practically Efficient’s short history. Actually, traffic here has increased by leaps and bounds for each of the last 3 months – at an average rate of 67% per month.

I’m really enjoying writing Practically Efficient. I’ve also enjoyed hearing from those of you who leave comments and write me. I’m learning a lot from you. It's good to know that in between my typos and ramblings, you're finding something useful here.

A look at the most popular “all time” PE posts

The two most popular posts here at Practically Efficient continue to be a two that I wrote on MultiMarkdown earlier this year. Google seems to really have a crush on these and sends me lots of MultiMarkdown-knowledge-hungry visitors daily to view them:

• Building a better writing workflow with Notational Velocity, MultiMarkdown, and Simplenote

• My MultiMarkdown writing workflow with LaunchBar and Hazel

I continue to use MultiMarkdown almost exclusively for web writing. If you have questions about how I’m using it or ideas for other MultiMarkdown areas to explore, please let me know.

A few August 2010 highlights

• The month opened with a post on the latest updates to Kindle for iPad. Kindle (the service) continues to be my favorite e-reading platform, though I don’t own the Kindle device.

• I also shared my thoughts on the future of computer design and media ownership. I have to unload these soliloquies every now and then.

• I discussed the Virgin Mobile MiFi and why I think it’s the ideal mate for your iPad. PE is not a gadget blog, but I do like mentioning gadgets that aid my workflows.

• I wrote two posts on the concept of thought capture: how to make it happen and the tools I use.

• I offered my thoughts on how the 21st century is allowing creation through recycling at an accelerating rate and related it to the story of William Kamkwamba's windmill innovation.

• I wrote a week-long series on setting better hurdles in life called “Note to self.” A lot of new folks were introduced to PE through this series thanks to a link from my friend David Sparks, one of the best experts on Mac productivity you’ll find.

• The month concluded with a Practically Efficient first: an interview with Katie Floyd on her lengthy experience with Macs and her thoughts on other Apple things.

• I also redesigned the archives page in August to make it easier to find past content. Let me know what you think of the layout – whether you love or hate it.

Looking ahead

You can expect to see more writing on productivity, workflows, and technology culture here at PE in the coming weeks. If you like what you see and want more of it, please let me know. The comments and emails I’ve gotten so far have been really helpful in guiding the course of this practically efficient odyssey.

I’m excited and honored to give you a special post today. I recently had the opportunity to ask one of my favorite Mac power users, Katie Floyd, 12 questions on a several Mac topics, including her experience as a Mac podcaster and Mac consultant.

Katie is one half of the power duo in the Mac Power Users Podcast, a show that explores a multitude of Mac workflow topics in depth. She and David Sparks both do a fantastic job, and I guarantee that you’ll learn something new by regularly listening to them. I know I have.

Katie is also a frequent participant on another one of my favorite podcasts, the Mac Roundtable, a show that features a variety of knowledgeable and interesting Mac personalities.

So without further delay, here’s what Katie had to say…

When and why did you buy your first Mac?

I got my first Mac in mid-1984. My dad owned a small sporting goods shop and bought the 128k Mac used off of someone for his business. I don’t remember why someone was selling a nearly new 128k Mac at the time – but I remember my dad bought it because he got it practically new but at a bit if a discount. I was 4 years old at the time so he thought it would be cute to load up MacPaint and let me play. From there on things were history…the computer was mine.

My dad went out and bought a 512 Macintosh a few months later when they were released and the 128 officially became my computer. My parents just let me tinker and play and figure things out for myself. After that I had a steady stream of hand-me-down Macs from my dad and then later (when my dad switched to the PC for about 15 years in the early 90s) from my uncle. My uncle was a computer engineer with a serious Mac habit and always had the latest and greatest with a need to refresh every 18 months to 2 years so I was always able to pickup a generation or two old technology at a steal.

My stream of hand-me-down Macs continued until I was a Junior college when I finally had a job where I was able to save enough money that I could put enough money away to save up to buy a new machine of my own. In 2001 I bought my first “new” Mac – a 500 MHz Titanium MacBook Pro– set me back about $3,500. Quite a steep price for a poor college kid but by that time I had been getting by with second hand Macs long enough I figured I was about due for the latest and greatest.

What type of Mac do you work on the most?

I’ve always been a one-Mac person since 2001 that Mac has always been a notebook. My current Mac is a 13” MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB 7200RPM hard drive. When I’m at home, I have it connected to a 20” Apple Cinema Display (it’s about 8 years old but still going strong) along with a keyboard and mouse. I love the portability of the 13” MacBook Pro on the road, and so long as I keep it upgraded every 2 – 3 years I find it has enough horsepower for my needs.

I supplement my Mac quite a bit now with my iPhone and my iPad. In fact, there are days that I don’t even turn my Mac on because I’m computing solely from my iPad. I’ve contemplated getting a more-powerful iMac to use as my primary machine and just using the iPad on the road, but there are still many occasions where I need to use a full-fledged computer away from my desk. There are additional costs involved with maintaining two systems and of course there is the ever-present problem of keeping the systems in sync (although this is getting better.) So for now, I’ve decided a one computer system works best for me with the flexibility of a notebook but the external display, mouse and keyboard for added comfort and functionality when working at home.

If you could have a 15-minute interview with with Steve Jobs, what would you talk about?

My first question for Steve would be to ask him if I could have a job.

One of the things that has always intrigued me about Steve Jobs on a personal level is his ability to persuade people. We jokingly refer to this as his reality distortion field. As an attorney, this is a great skill to have. Jobs has an innate ability to persuade people to do things they never would have otherwise done. Before the iPhone, it was unheard of for carriers to give a phone manufacturer, especially one who had never created a mobile phone, the freedom and terms that AT&T gave Apple. Steve Jobs persuaded AT&T to do it. Before the iTunes Store record labels hated the idea of putting their content on the internet, but somehow Steve made them see his point of view, and now iTunes is the single largest music reseller on the planet and everyone is making money hand over fist. If I could spend time with Steve Jobs – more than anything I would want to learn how he does that.

What has been the most enjoyable aspect about making the Mac Power Users podcast with David Sparks?

By far, my favorite part of doing Mac Power Users is working with David. Prior to starting Mac Power Users David and I didn’t know each other that well. We had worked together some on the Mac Roundtable and got to spend time together at Macworld. We were the two Mac attorneys so we had that in common. We also had this geeky productivity obsession. What I didn’t realize is just how brilliant (and a little crazy) David is. A lot of preparation goes into these episodes and I am learning quite a bit myself with every episode. I’ve learned more from David as an attorney, a Mac enthusiast, and just as a person than I ever imagined, and that has been the greatest part of Mac Power Users.

Of course, I would be remiss if I also didn’t mention how overwhelmed I’ve been by the support of our fans and the success the show has enjoyed. Both David and I have been blown away by how well the show has been accepted right from the start. The response from our fans is just humbling and I’m thrilled that we also have some wonderful sponsors who also think enough of the show to support us and keep the habit going.

What has been one of the most rewarding experiences you’ve had as a Mac consultant? The most adventurous? The most challenging?

I worked as a Mac consultant primarily in college and during law school as a way to make a few extra bucks and support myself in school. Since I’ve been practicing law I don’t have the time to do any consulting (other than to keep my family up and running.) I still occasionally see a few clients who have special needs, but most of my consulting days are over. Most of my consulting work is pro-bono now through my local Mac Users Group.

Probably my most rewarding experiences have come through working with the local Mac Users Group. Most of the users who come to these groups have fairly simple problems and showing them simple tips and tricks to use their Mac more efficiently can make a world of difference. Explaining to someone that you don’t have to use webmail or showing them the difference of POP vs. IMAP so you don’t end up with missing or duplicate email messages. It’s really the simple things that can make the biggest differences.

I’m going to take this opportunity to put in my obligatory plug for local Mac Users Groups. I’ve gotten great joy over the years out of working with my local MUG. Mac User Groups desperately need involvement from more advanced users. If you’re reading this post, you’re probably one of them. Take a few minutes to find out about your local MUG and get involved. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t get involved with mine sooner.

Of the Mac podcasters and bloggers I follow, you’ve been the most vocal about your struggles with iPhone 4 reception. Have these struggles cast any doubt in your mind about Apple’s future in mobile?

I’ve gotten a little flack about being so vocal about my criticism about the iPhone 4. On one hand, I’ll accept that this is a problem that seems to impact a minority of users. So I don’t want to make a bigger deal out of something than it needs to be, and I hate to annoy all those people who aren’t having problems with their iPhone with my tale of woe.

On the other hand, I think there are many people out there hyping up all the iPhone 4 problems who have no idea what they’re talking about. My purpose is not to generate hype, it’s simply to say, ‘Hey, I’m a real person who is having a real issue and this is what’s happening to me.’ I don’t know if the iPhone 4 is fatally flawed, but I can tell you that despite what a marvel of technology it is, it’s a far worse phone than my iPhone 3G and while the bumper helps, it still has serious problems.

That being said, Apple is still insanely successful in the mobile arena. The iPhone 4 is the most successful iPhone ever despite these problems. While I understand from a PR standpoint Apple has to be very measured in its response and will never admit there to be a problem, I will be very concerned if they don’t learn from this experience.

I have no doubt that Apple has done their homework and has invested billions of dollars in R&D and antenna facilities and engineers and the works. On paper, the iPhone 4 probably has the best darn antenna ever. But, I think what Apple can sometimes loose sight of is that conditions in the real world do not always match the conditions in their perfectly calculated tests.

In the real world, AT&T’s network is unpredictable; in the real world, people hold their phones with their bare hands and without a case; in the real world, there are all kinds of sources of interference. Apple’s code of silence and secrecy when it comes to new products and their lack of real world beta testing I think hurts them in situations like this. I hope they’ll learn from these experiences. If they want me to test the iPhone 5, just call me, I’m happy to help because I live in the real world and in far less than optimal conditions. If the iPhone 5 will work for me, it will work for anyone.

Do you use Macs exclusively in all your workflows or do you also use PCs and/or other operating systems?

I use a PC at work, but that’s only because it’s what the office provides me. While my office uses some PC-only billing and real estate software, it’s not software that I regularly use in my practice. So there’s really no reason I couldn’t have a Mac on my desk.

We devoted an entire Mac Power Users Show (episode 28) to this topic. Thankfully my office uses Exchange 2007 so I’m able to easily integrate my mail, contacts and calendars with my iPhone, iPad and Mac. I do some very basic document sharing with Dropbox and have the ability to access my work network through Microsoft Remote Desktop. But quite frankly, I’m happy to keep my work and personal life a little segregated since I already put in well more than 40 hours a week. There’s something about coming home to my Mac and breathing a sigh of relief and saying “ah…so nice to come home to this.”

The major downside – OmniFocus – I would kill to be able to use OmniFocus at work.

Has the iPad has changed your workflows in any significant way?

The iPad has changed my computer usage in a very significant way, as it has quickly become my preferred consumption device. For surfing the web, reading RSS feeds, checking twitter content or viewing online media the iPad is tough to beat. If you calculate all the hours I spend on my computer for “non work” purposes, a large number of them probably fit into that category. I’ve found that I’m using my Mac less and less and reaching for my iPad more and more.

The iPad has also become almost a second computer in many instances. It’s my bedroom computer, my patio computer, my kitchen table computer and my living room computer. The on-screen keyboard isn’t great, but it’s growing on me and even in the last few months I’ve found my typing skills have gotten better and better. Instead of one or two sentence replies to emails I’m up to a couple of paragraphs. As the more  powerhouse applications come out for the iPad (most notably Omni Focus for iPad and soon Omni Outliner) I look forward to getting even more work done.

I recently ordered a Tom Bihn Ristretto for iPad and along with my Bluetooth keyboard I plan on taking my iPad along with me more places and getting even more done. This in combination with iOS 4 update which will bring multitasking and background applications to the iPad I think will make it an even more functional device. In October I’m flying out to Las Vegas for Blogworld. I’ll be gone only four days so I figure it’s a great opportunity to try traveling without a notebook for once.

If you could only have 5 Mac applications, what would they be? 5 iPhone apps?

I’m going to assume for this list that I at least get to keep all the built-in apps that come on the Mac and the iPhone like Mail, Safari, iTunes, etc. So this list is of my must have third party apps.

On the Mac:

1. Dropbox
2. 1Password
3. TextExpander
4. Launchbar
5. NetNewsWire

On the iPhone:

1. Twitter
2. Instapaper
3. 1Password
4. Evernote
5. OmniFocus

Who do you view as the most influential Mac personality in the last 30 years (excluding all Apple employees)?

Because you had to make this question difficult by eliminating all past or present Apple employees, them I’m going to have to cheat a little and not name one specific person but instead name a category of people – albeit a little self-serving. The Fanboys.

By Fanboys I mean that to include men and women. Apple has gone through a lot of changes in the past 30 years. The company went through some particularly bad years in the 90s and nearly died countless times. (Oh boy, do I wish I had bought some Apple stock when it was around $10.) It’s easy to love a company when it’s doing well, but it’s hard when it’s failing. 15 years ago it wasn’t easy to be a Mac user but there was always this hardcore base of Apple enthusiasts to kept the dream alive.

Today, Apple is stronger than ever so perhaps the company doesn’t think it needs the Fanboys as much as it once did. But Apple evangelism is still alive and well.

What advice would you give to anyone interested in starting a podcast?

I would tell anyone who wants to produce a podcast to sit down and think about why they’re doing it and what they want to get out of it. Don’t just sit down to the microphone and start recording. You really need to put a lot of time and effort into planning what you want to do, how you’re going to do it and how you see it evolving over the long term. From a technical standpoint, producing and publishing a podcast is not hard. But producing a good one with staying power is really, really hard. To be successful you have to know your subject matter, present it in a unique, interesting and informative way, and be consistent with your delivery.

David and I knew that we wanted to produce a podcast long before we actually sat down to record the first show. We spent a good six months brainstorming and mapping the show. We spent time analyzing what was already out there and what we through we could contribute to the field. We only wanted to bring another Mac podcast into the already crowed field if we thought we could bring something unique and interesting. There are many great Mac podcasts out there and we thought that we owed it to our fellow podcasters (many of whom are close personal friends) and our audience not just to rehash all the other content that was out there. I think that was one of the best decisions we made.

You also have to ask yourself why you’re podcasting. Believe me, it’s not for fame or fortune. If you think that you’re sadly mistaken. If you’re really lucky as David and I have been, you’ll have some wonderful experiences and meet some great friends along the way and get to interact with a brilliant audience. Statistically the odds of making a career out of podcasting are probably less than becoming a pro athlete.

So, find a topic you’re passionate about, think about why you want to do this and get all the specifics of your show and format worked out in advance, make sure you have something interesting and unique to say, don’t just rehash other content or rip off another show format and be consistent with your production quality and release dates.

Are you involved in any interesting projects at the moment, have any Mac Power Users news, or other news you’d like PE readers to know about?

Mac Power Users is rocking along nicely. We’re kicking around adding another type of show with more of Q&A format on occasion to supplement our “Workflows” shows. We’re constantly getting a feedback and questions from our listeners that really don’t fit with any of our show topics but yet don’t quite warrant an entire show of their own and we want to find a way to address all of those questions rather than responding to individual emails.

Other than that I’m looking forward to attending my first Blogworld in October and getting some ideas from the new media experts and catching up with some of my podcasting friends. After that, Macworld 2011 isn’t too far away.

Where you can find Katie

• Mac Power Users Podcast
• Her blog, KatieFloyd.me
• @KatieFloyd on Twitter
• Mac Roundtable Podcast

This is the 5th of 5 posts in the series Note to self.

* * *

Much of our lives are based on recurrence.

There are so many things in our lives that happen in daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual cycles. And to much of it, we’re oblivious. Just think about your day, beginning to end. Think about everything little mundane thing you do – it’s likely the same thing you did the day before, and you’ll do it tomorrow too.

And that’s fine. It’s human.

But what if we could limit recurrence? What are the implications?

I believe that a life less redundant is a life more lived. Living less redundantly means that we’re creating a fuller, richer body of work.

That’s the abstract view. On a more practical note. . .

When it comes to recurring tasks, there is a tremendous amount of untapped efficiency just begging to be gained by “task bundling.”

As I discussed earlier in this series, we often underestimate the amount of time that will be available to our future selves.

Indeed, time is one of the most important constraints in your task system. If you bundle tasks, you recognize that there are many things in your task “cycles” that can be done in the same temporal proximity. It’s a way of leveraging time. . . in a way.

Practically efficient task bundling - an example

Bills are a fact of life. Paying them has certainly gotten a lot easier with the advent of online payment systems. However, I bet most people could gain a lot of efficiency by bundling their bill paying activities into denser piles.

Even if you don’t schedule reminders to pay bills, you still have some sort of reminder system – otherwise, the lights would be out and the faucets dry. Whether it’s waiting for paper bills to land in your mail box or e-bills to land in your inbox, something tugs at you so that you pay up.

It’s easy to allow the event of seeing a new bill be a trigger to pay that bill. But if you do that, you’re not only losing time by paying your bills inefficiently, you’re also allowing unnecessary external control of your behavior.

Spending just 30 minutes analyzing your bill cycles will give you that 30 minutes back many times over, and you can use that time doing more productive or enjoyable things.

To illustrate, let’s assume you pay all of your bills electronically using your bank’s website. Let’s look at the actions needed each time you pay a bill. Think of these as temporal overhead costs:

1. Stop what you’re doing and go to your computer
2. Turn on your computer and go to your bank’s website
3. Make sure you have enough money in the right account
4. Pay bill(s)
5. Take yourself away from your computer (easier for some than others)
6. Resume your life

I think people really underestimate the time it takes to pay bills because item 4 is the focus, but items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 all must happen too.

I’m not going to attempt to put real times on these activities because it will greatly vary from person to person. For example, some people leave their computers on all the time, so startup time is negligible.

But in general, I think I can safely assume that from start to finish, steps 1 through 6 are going to consume 30 minutes of your day at a minimum. The “disruption” aspect alone is probably worth at least 30 minutes. In other words, you’re losing the opportunity to do something else productive or enjoyable in that time.

The time spent on the focal point of the task (paying the bill) is probably tiny. I bet it’s less than one minute for most people, maybe only seconds. Paying the bill is like a variable cost. The time you spend on step 4 above is proportional to the number of bills you need to pay: one bill = 1 minute; 2 bills = 2 minutes; and so on.

An example

Let’s say you get 8 bills each month and you pay those in 4 separate events. That’s 2 hours of temporal overhead and maybe 8 minutes of actual bill paying (clicking the pay button on a website).

If you could pay your bills twice a month, you’re getting back an hour of your time each month. If you can pay all of your monthlies at once, you’re clawing back 1.5 hours per month. That’s 18 hours a year.

So spending just 30 minutes to sit down and look at all your bill due dates and make a decision about the optimal time to pay each gives you back 18 hours a year. That's more than 2 standard working days. It's a good deal.

Making it happen

Doing this “analysis” is really easy. Just write down each bill (a spreadsheet is a great way), and make note of the due date. You’ll quickly see a pattern emerge.

All you have to do is pick one or two days each month on which you can comfortably pay each bill by its due date.

Here’s an example:

</col> </col> </col>

Payee	Actual Due Date	Pay Date
Eelectric	3	16
Auto insurance	6	16
Mobile	2	16
Cable	2	16
Credit card 1	28	16
Credit card 2	22	16

All of these can be paid comfortably on the 16th of the month, and there will be plenty of time for the payment to get to the payee. It’s likely that the bills for these won’t arrive at the same time. For example, your electric bill may come on the 7th, but your cable bill may come on the 14th. Without making a concerted effort to pay these on the same day, you’d be likely to pay them in separate events – wasting temporal overhead.

Beyond bill paying

The concept of task bundling can be applied to all of your tasks.  It's really about recognizing that you have many tasks that can be performed in close proximity -- whether it's spatial or temporal.  Just using context-based bundling a little bit can greatly improve your productivity and add value to your day.

Try to organize your tasks by context (e.g. @home, @calls, @work, and so forth).  That way, when you're actually in those places, you can focus on the tasks you need to do there. Most importantly, it lets you filter out the tasks you can't do while in those places.

I've even seen cases where people extend the context concept to parts of the day in lieu of setting due times.  For example, you could use tags like "after6pm" or "morning". Earlier in this series, I talked about the downside to setting too many due dates. This another great alternative to using due dates because it's less likely to back you into a corner.

Wrapping up

This concludes my series on making better hurdles in life, Note to self.

I covered what I consider the four key pitfalls in task setting:

1. Misunderstanding of what a task due date should be
2. Bad prioritization
3. Setting tasks that aren’t actionable
4. Failing to bundle similar tasks

Everything I’ve discussed involves processes that I consider to be firmly rooted in my productivity workflows. While much of it was seeded by David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, these are all things that I’ve been practicing long enough to know that they work. If they can work for you too, that’s great.

Let me know.

This is the 4th of 5 posts in the series Note to self.

* * *

Earlier, I mentioned that tasks like “learning Spanish” are not really tasks.

“Learning Spanish” isn’t a good task because it’s not actionable. However, a task like “call the local technical college to check Spanish class costs” is concrete, easily digested, and most importantly, less intimidating. In David Allen’s GTD parlance, this is what’s called a “next action.”

If you’re using a task system now, look over your tasks and try to identify any that aren’t really actionable. If you’ve never done this, I bet you’ll find quite a few.

In a way, it’s good to have a pile of nebulous tasks. It means you like to set goals. But the key is breaking goals down into bit-sized pieces that can be gobbled up along the way to the realization of goals.

As you look at your tasks, imagine that you’re going to tell someone else to do them. Be specific and action-oriented. Don’t be passive.

4 practically efficient tips for making actionable tasks

• Put things in context. A contextual tagging system can be very useful for grouping tasks that will be carried out in the same spatial proximity. Tags like @work, @home, and @calls can be very useful for keep like tasks together so they can be executed more efficiently. “Empty dish washer” goes better with “mop kitchen floor” than “turn in TPS report.”

• Use action-oriented words to define tasks. I try to stay in the habit of writing tasks as complete sentences. Most tasks should start with a verb and have a subject. That’s not to say tasks have to be super verbose. For example, “call Frank” works just fine. An even better example is “call Frank about the $500 he owes me.” Even better: “call Frank to tell him that if he doesn’t pay me that $500, I’m going to…”

• Make actions believable. If you often make tasks like “bench press 750 pounds,” you’re going to lose credibility with yourself. Consistently completing tasks involving achievable actions is incredibly powerful and motivating. You can move mountains with this stuff if you stay credible and start generating a pile of checked-off tasks. Success quickly begets success.

• Don’t be afraid to turn an intimidating action into a series of smaller ones. I know this is very similar to the last point, but it’s worth emphasizing. You really can’t get too granular with actionable tasks. If you think about it, any project or task is carried out with a series of very small actions. It starts with lifting your hand or turning on your computer or picking up your phone. These actions are so simple, they are imperceptible. Imagine if you could turn the most daunting goals in your life into a series of mindless actions. I bet you can.

Your turn

How do you stay focused on making actionable tasks?

You can catch up on the other posts in this series by clicking on tag: note to self. Coming up next, I'm going to talk about a beautiful thing: task bundles.