Office 2007 Tip of the Week

Tame your Inbox with the 4 Ds

2010-01-25

Once you set up your system, you are ready to begin managing incoming e-mail. By making your Inbox the central place for receiving important e-mail, you can go through it with the confidence that each item is something you need to deal with in one way or another.

For every message in your Inbox:

If it isn't important, delete it immediately.
If it can be done in two minutes or less, do it (reply, file, call, etc.).
If it isn't for you or if you can, delegate (forward) it.
If you need to do it, but it takes longer than two minutes (including reading), defer it (hold off on it).

If you need it as reference (even if you have decided to defer it), move it into your reference folder. The goal is to reduce the number of times you touch each message.

Delete it

Delete messages that you don't need to read. If it is junk, delete it.

Do it: The 2-minute drill

It is amazing what can be done in two minutes. But if a message takes longer than two minutes to deal with, defer it. To get a sense of what two minutes feels like, try timing yourself.

Once you have dealt with the message, do one of the following:

Delete it (if it is something of little consequence).
File it into one of your reference folders (for example, 1-Reference).

Delegate it

Sometimes you receive a message that is really meant for someone else to deal with. In these cases, reply and add the person to whom you are delegating the message on the To line. If you want to follow up later,flag it for yourself before sending. In your To-Do Bar, mark these tasks with the @Waiting category.

Defer it

Deferring a message means that you will come back to it later, when you have time.

Reasons to defer a message:

It cannot be dealt with in less than two minutes.
It will take a while to read.
It will require a carefully crafted response.
It requires additional action in another program (for example, "Need to add to <name> document").

How to defer a message: Flag it

When you decide that you don't have time to deal with a message right away, you can flag it:

If you need to do it today, flag it for Today (just click the flag).
If you know that you can put it off for longer, right-click and flag it for another date.
If you will need to refer to the message more than once and you want easy access to it, drag it to the Later group in the To-Do Bar. If you do not have a Later group, set the flag Start Date on the task to 100 years in the future. (Use this flag rarely so that it does not become an overpopulated catch-all.)
If it is something you will need in the short term, flag it No Date so that it appears at the top of the To-Do Bar. Be sure to use this group sparingly and clear it out regularly, because it is at the top of your task list.

In addition to flagging a message, you can:

Add appropriate categories.
Mark it as read, if it isn't already marked as read.
File it to your reference folder (1-Reference).

Once an item has been flagged, it will appear in the To-Do Bar. By filing it into your reference folder, you are getting it out of your view. But because it is in your task list, you can move on to your next e-mail message, knowing that you will return to your flagged items later.

If you want to add information to your tasks:

If the subject of a message does not provide you enough context, you can do one of two things, depending upon the amount of information you need to add:

Change the name of the task in the To-Do Bar. Changing the name of the task will not change the subject of the e-mail message.
Create a task with the message as an attachment.

You can also add a category to help you know at a glance where your next action is. A quick glance at a To-Do Bar with categorized tasks will let you know what is immediately actionable (@Office), which tasks you are waiting on other people for (@Waiting), and what you'll be meeting about (@Meeting).

When do you deal with tasks you deferred?

After you process your messages, you can tackle your task list. This is when you respond to those messages that you have deferred.

Just file it

Sometimes you receive a message that you do not need to act upon, but which you might need at a future date. A good example is a message with instructions. File these messages in your reference folder (1-Reference). Adding a category at this time will make it easier to find later if you need it (for example, @Project).

To file your message, you can do one of the following: drag it to the appropriate reference folder; click the Move to Folder command on the toolbar; right-click the message and click Move to Folder; or press CTRL+SHIFT+V to open the Move to Folder dialog box.

After you finish processing your e-mail, you should have a clean Inbox and can switch your focus to your calendar and tasks.