Pat’s Point of View

When you manage to empty your inbox! Mark Hurst has tells us how to achieve this elation, using the Good Experience todo list (Gootodo). How’s a todo list relate to an empty inbox?

For years Web users have labored under the strain of poorly designed e-mail programs, way too much incoming e-mail, and the stress of not knowing how to deal with it all. As a result, knowledge workers have been working in unhealthy ways, and the global economy (I believe) has failed to fulfill its promises of increased productivity from
the massive IT investments of the 1990s.

For the past ten years I’ve developed the “bit literacy” philosophy of letting go of bits, of attaining clarity by working from emptiness. In an age of infinite bits, the only way to survive is to carve paths of emptiness, not trying to consume ever greater quantities of bits.

The beachhead for this effort is the e-mail inbox, the primary (not the only) source of stress for knowledge workers. People simply don’t know how to deal with e-mail. It’s not because they’re dumb; it’s because the tools are poorly designed (Outlook, Notes, Eudora, and the rest weren’t designed in the age of bits and were never meant to be used in an environment where e-mail is as important as it is today) – and, more importantly, because no one has ever *taught* users how to deal with the bits.

[Following a few simple rules will help you reach an inbox] count of zero – empty! – at which time you can really begin to work productively… by working from your todo list, not a jumbled inbox.

I shall have to give this a go! :)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Ramblings. If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to leave a comment or follow @patrickkennedy on Twitter.

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About the author

Patrick Kennedy is a user experience strategist and design researcher based in Sydney Australia. He leads research activities that improve the user experience of cross-channel products and services; helping both designers and business decision makers in bringing those products and services to fruition. Read more.