Value Your Time

I have been working hard to get back into the GTD mode. I started last week with over 1400 emails in my inbox, and as of right now there are 4 items left. I needed a little refresher course in GTD so I reviewed a great series by Merlin Mann titled Inbox Zero Series. Merlin is a GTD guru and email Ninja. His blog 43 Folders is one of the most well read in the GTD world.

The last article in the series Better Practices for staying (near) zero inlcudes this nugget on Valuing Your Time:

Well, I promise you, this is some serious, practical, non-hippie advice. It’s day-one stuff, kids, because if you don’t learn to value your time, you will quickly find a volunteer army of slackers who will be more than happy to help waste it for you. “Time burglars,” the newly-efficient Bart Simpson might have called them (”You can’t just go off Focusyn!”). Email is the most dependable modern location to witness your time being frittered away by strangers, but you are now officially Vice-President in Charge of Ensuring That Your Time is Not Wasted by Strangers. Congratulations on the promotion.

This also means not half-assing the attention you pay to the task at hand; do email when you do email — don’t just flip through it while thinking about Lost or fretting over your thinning hairline or wondering how you’ll paper train your new Labradoodle, Barney. Take these tasks seriously, and stop depending on email as your fickle source for status, affection, and thumb exercises.

Serious, straightforward, no bullshit advice.

Peace.