If it’s all going well, you’ll have some lovely routines taking shape and things are beginning to fall into place. But equally, there’s probably a lot of things lying around in piles and “to-do” lists that need tackling and hasn’t yet found its way into our new system here. We’re going to start dealing with all this today. This one will probably take some time, so you might want to set aside a good chunk of time to work on this, or else do a little at a time over a few days before moving on.
Setup Mission 13 : Collect you things to do together ready to sort your new inbox system
Completion Points : 50
We’re going to create a list that we’ll call your “inbox”. This is basically a collection bucket for everything that comes into your life (letters, emails, things others mention to you, thoughts that occur to you etc) that you don’t have time to deal with straight away. Once we get this set up properly, nothing will sit in the inbox for longer than 24 hours (at the maximum), but for now, it’s likely to be quite a long list and we’ll deal with it in different stages so it’ll take a week or so before this is truly up and running for the long-term.
Today’s steps then:
- Get a large sheet of paper (this isn’t going to be your permanent inbox, so don’t worry about finding anything fancy for now – just as long as there’s loads of space to write).
- Draw a line down the middle of your page. Label one side “routine” and the other “one-off”. As you add things to this list, sort then into tasks which will need repeating at some point (regardless of how infrequently) on the “routine” side and everything that can be dealt with and crossed off forever will go on the “one-off” side.
- Add onto your list all the things you’re trying to remember to do at the moment – all the things that you know you should be doing but that haven’t actually got as far as being written down. You might be trying to remember to reply to an email, send Aunty Ethel a birthday card, mow the lawn, sort out a car service, buy milk, feed the cat and a million and one other things. Whatever it is, however trivial, it needs writing on your list. Trying to keep things in your head, however good your memory, can always lead to things being missed.
- Collect together all the “things to do” lists you keep, scraps of paper you’ve scribbled important information on, letters that need dealing with, shopping lists, email inbox, missed call list and any other source of stuff to deal with that you’ve got cluttering up your life and home. Go through every one systematically and add each task that needs your attention to the list. Once you’ve dealt with each item, think very carefully about whether you need to keep the original paperwork – ideally you don’t want to be dealing the same bit of paperwork twice. Make a neat pile for things that really do need to be filed (we’ll come back to filing in a little while) but get rid of as much as you can.
- Walk around every room of your house, garden, office, car, garage and anywhere else you have “stuff” and add any other tasks you can think of that need doing in these places. Now isn’t the time to get sidetracked by actually doing it – you could be there all week!
- Your page (or more likely, pages) probably look hideous, but rest assured it will never look this bad again after we’ve dealt with it this once. Quickly check that everything is written in the right column, and keep the list close by – EVERYTHING new that occurs to you while we sort this system out needs to be added to the list.
Life Game 101 