Work & Productivity

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Work & Productivityaside

Inbox Zero and minimizing my email time

Last weekend I came across another Inbox Zero post. Well, I decided it was time to audit my Email usage. What struck me as surprising was how many minutes I logged on Monday.

  • Monday: 47 minutes
  • Tuesday: 30 minutes
  • Wednesday: 25 minutes
  • Thursday 17 minutes

Unsurprisingly, as the week progressed I dwindled that number down to by Thursday.

I already aggressively apply David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology to my workflow by automatically filtering emails to “buckets”  so I thought 47 minutes was pretty high.

As for the post referenced above suggesting you need four apps to automate your life. I can narrow that down to one app and pen to paper.

Choose your favorite email client, that’s it.

  • If you work in an organization
    • filter external email addresses to an external email folder, much of it will be spam anyway.
    • filter internal “all staff” distribution list emails to an All Staff folder
    • What remains in your inbox should be mostly actionable emails directed to you personally by a human.
      • Drag what you need to do to a Review folder
      • Drag what you don’t need to act upon to an Archive folder
      • Drag what needs review in the future to a Waiting folder, check it once or twice a week.
      • Reading or Reference material can go in either the Waiting or Review folder depending on the urgency
  • If you freelance
    • Add all your known client email addresses to a safe list and keep it maintained
      • You can then filter them directly to your Review folder or leave them in your Inbox for manual sorting
    • Filter known non-urgent emails such as newsletters, social media, and similar to a Casual folder and try to only look at it once a day
    • Anything that can’t be sorted should make it into your Inbox for quick manual sorting
  • Lastly Use a simple notebook or notepad for task logging, I like to use the Bullet Journal‘s core system. No fancy designed apps or notebooks here. Just a pocket notebook
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Joseph Dickson is a WordPress Developer in Los Angeles CA.

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Desktop & Wallpaper Work & Productivity

Trisquel 8 First Impressions

My Trisquel 8 Desktop and Wallpaper
My Trisquel 8 Desktop and Wallpaper

Once I customize the look and feel Trisquel 8 becomes a very pretty and stable Desktop.

I installed WordPress without any weirdness or issues. That meets my minimum requirements. Additionally, not a single glitch and I was able to enjoy a brew and Linux Game Cast while installing WordPress.I’d be remiss if I didn’t give credit where credit is due to the Nouveau driver support running my Nvidia 750ti perfectly.Update: Unable to log back in after suspend soured me a little. Rather than take the time to research the problem I decided to give Solus a shot.
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Joseph Dickson is a WordPress Developer in Los Angeles CA.

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Work & Productivityimage

90’s era Staedtler Mars-780 lead holder

Staedtler Mars-780
Staedtler Mars-780 made in Germany Circa '96-'98

Found this old friend while sorting through some old art supplies in my home office last night.

Probably purchased it between late ’96 and ’98 for a drafting course. Staedtler makes their carbon lead for this ranging from 4H to 4B and I forgot how much I loved sketching with this thing.

At closer inspection I rember the time it spent some time sitting in an ink spill in an old ‘Art Box.’

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Joseph Dickson is a WordPress Developer in Los Angeles CA.

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