Interesting Stats and Thoughts - In my grand effort to "Reduce Clutter" as a major my primary goal in life right now, I'm noticing what works and what doesn't. Sometimes, I like to jot down stats while I'm working, and watch the numbers stack up.

My Inbox - Some time management and/or organization methods or motivators talk about reducing the number of emails in your inbox. I have to admit, sometimes I let already-read emails stack up in my inbox either as "I haven't gotten around to archiving this" because I just forgot or "I'm supposed to do something about this" so I let the email sit in my inbox "as a reminder" that I'm supposed to act on the email.

Um, having 933 read emails is not an effective tickler file anymore.

So yesterday, I finally looked at the 13 unread emails that were "marked unread" so that I would remember to deal with them. They'd been marked unread for so long, that I no longer saw them as a reminder to do anything. They had just become the background of my landscape. They looked normal. Once I acted on (or filed or archived) each of those 13 emails, I started tackling some of the other emails in the inbox. I reduced the box from 933 messages and 13 of those were unread to 933 messages, 0 unread, and 2 appointments on my calendar.

This morning, I had 14 new emails - 14 new : 947 in the inbox : 14 unread : 0 new appts. At the end of 30 minutes I had - 0 new : 877 in inbox : 0 unread : 4 new appointments on the calendar. Since then while I was writing this journal entry, 8 new emails had arrived, been read, addressed, answered, archived, and there are 3 new appointments on the calendar. I think I'll be able to stop tracking "how many unread emails are in my inbox" because I'm just going to make a rule that there are 0 unread emails. Emails either get answered or archived or put on the calendar as an appointment for later. And I'm going to be blocking out reasonable time blocks for *doing* whatever that task is I just added on my calendar -- Answer question, Find photos, Sponsor someone's plea for charity/fund-raising, Finish these scrolls -- whatever.

Financial Records - I moved my "check register" to appointments on a Finances Calendar. This calendar reminds me to balance my receipts from the previous day (or weekend, if I was out of town). I know which bills are due and when they were last paid. I know which "surprise expenditures" are likely to be forgotten, and scheduled them so I'm *not* surprised anymore. And since I've been moving email appointments to my calendars, it's nice to see that my expenses are already on a calendar. They integrate nicely.

Daily versus Weekly or Regularly - Not everything I want to do to reduce clutter can be done on a Daily Basis. I travel too frequently or schedule events too often to always be available for some tasks. By returning to my strengths instead of requiring a Daily or Weekly appointment, I'm started scheduling the reminders I *really* need, versus the reminders that are redundant or unhelpful. I still love reporting a few of my successes on Twitter, longer stories in my journal, and checking things off on my calendar for my personal tracking.

Final Email Count - I kept a stickie note next to the computer for every time a new email arrived, and just made a mark, read the email, answered or archived or added to the calendar... and I just totalled my day: 97 new emails arrived in *this* inbox today. Ninety-seven NEW pieces. Now, granted, there was more traffic today than usual because one of the websites "goes live tonight at midnight" and everyone was chiming in for last minute work. But really? Almost a hundred times I was pinged for a conversation in my inbox? *sigh*

The close for the night is still 877 pieces in the inbox to either answer, move to the calendar, or archive; 97 new pieces arrived (0 remain unread); and 8 appointments scheduled on my calendar to act on the new or old emails. Good grief. It's no wonder I haven't found the time to look at "the other" email inbox, where all my subscribed email-list traffic arrives.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Google, for inventing Google Calendar: the tool I would have designed if I'd known how to program the perfect Calendar tool