Paper Tiger Blog

By Meggin McIntosh, “The Ph.D. of Productivity”™ and Paper Tiger Expert

Meggin also recommends Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management to get everything in your life organized — it’s not just for filing paper.

How about this (and see if it doesn’t ring true for you): For the average professional, at least ½ (i.e., 50%) of what comes into your email inbox is immediately delete-able. (new word, I think). So, using that statistic, take careful note of the ideas in this article.

When you open your email (only limited number of times each day), have in your head that you are probably going to quickly delete at least 50% of them. Some, you can delete without even having to open them (ads, spam, silly things that people send that you could care less about, and so forth). Those are the easiest ones and you can just highlight those and hit delete. If you want to permanently delete, then most email programs allow you to hold down the Shift key and hit delete and then the items don’t even show up in your “deleted items” folder. But either way, press delete.

Now, when you actually begin to open your emails for real processing, you are going to have ones that you can delete just as soon as you see what they are. Several examples below:

• You’ve been cc’d or bcc’d on something that is not even pertinent to you. As soon as you make this determination, you delete the item.
• You receive emails that are announcements about upcoming events that either you’re not interested in, or that as soon as you look at your calendar, realize that you can’t attend. If no reply is required, just delete. If a reply is required, reply and then delete!
• You get a newsletter, information about something that you’ve subscribed to or requested, but you know you are now so far behind that the likelihood of getting this newsletter, special report, white paper, or other document read is slim to none. JUST DELETE IT. You’re a grown up…you get to choose!
• You receive mass emails that appear to be from someone way up in the organization (like a president, CFO, or the like) and in reality, it’s an announcement about a building being closed for maintenance. If it’s a building you’ve never been in, couldn’t find if you were looking for it, and don’t plan to be traveling to in the next few weeks, just delete the email.

Now, what about the emails that you need to ‘do something’ about. Can some of them still be deleted? YES. For example:

• You open the email and it’s something that answers a question you had, but no further action is required – and so you just delete (after writing down the info if it’s something you’ll need later).
• You open an email and the location for an upcoming meeting is included, which hadn’t been included in the last email. You either make note of that location in your calendar (paper or digital) and THEN YOU DELETE IT. There’s no need, once you’ve captured the information you need from an email to keep it.

The list goes on and on about what is delete-able. Remember, much of it can be deleted almost immediately, and quite a bit of the rest of it as soon as you’ve garnered what you needed from the email. As the title to the article suggests, delete early and often. Keep your email practices sane and sensible.

And access additional ways of getting and staying productive, then please join others (worldwide) who receive Meggin’s weekly tips and suggestions (and see what is available for download free at the following websites):

**Top Ten Productivity Tips (http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com)
**Keys to Keeping Chaos at Bay (http://www.KeepingChaosatBay.com)

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do. Sound interesting? It is!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meggin_McIntosh

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Tags: Document Management, Organize, Productivity