Time to Dust Off That Physical Inbox: How You Can Start Making Use of Your Inbox Once Again |
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| By Chase Smith |
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| Start Using Your Physical Inbox Again Email has quickly risen to the dominant position as far as means of communication go. Physical inboxes are beginning to seem like a thing of the past. Though they are still found on many people´s desks, for the most part they just sit there and accumulate dust and dirt. Most inboxes have two slots. In recent times, most office workers have begun to fill the bottom slot with garbage and use the top for the few items of inbox mail that they receive each day. However, there is a reason the physical inbox was made with two slots. Learning how to make use of this structure can increase your work productivity drastically. Make Your Inbox More Efficient It can be difficult to begin using your inbox again after so many years of allowing it to rot away on your desk. Looking around my office, I would guess that about 80 percent of workers have their inbox crammed with documents and haven´t used in in at least one week. Inboxes do not sort automatically like email boxes, so this task is up to you. Fortunately, there is a simple way to increase productivity with your inbox. Simply begin sorting through your inbox twice per day. I prefer to do this once in the morning and once after lunch. Make two separate piles. One pile should be for items that need your immediate attention and another should be for items that you may need in the future. Taking Care of Your Two Piles Once you have two piles of documents, you must begin by focusing your attention on the first pile, or the documents that require your attention. I like to start by completing all the tasks that I can complete in under two minutes. If it takes less than two minutes, I just complete the task to get it over with. Everything else gets added to my running list of tasks to complete. I keep the documents about these longer term tasks in a separate folder. If you like, you can even stash them in that bottom box! How to Use the Bottom Box The bottom box has quickly evolved to be a storage box, and in some cases there is nothing wrong with that. However, you may find that your productivity greatly increases once you begin using the bottom box for its planned purpose. It was initially put there as a place for workers to place items that needed filing later in the day. Using it for that purpose has helped be to stay organized and increase my productivity at work. When it all Comes Together Sorting through your physical inbox and getting it back into working order is a great first step towards increasing your workplace productivity. Moving files from the top to the bottom shelves also gives me a sense of accomplishment, and you may feel the same before long. One of the next big steps towards getting yourself organized at work is to rework your address books and contact lists. You will want to sort through these files and remove duplicate contacts and multiple entries. Unlike cleaning out your inbox, this is not something you will have to do completely on your own. There are many computer programs that will help you complete these tasks with ease. |
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| About The Author www.chasingproductivity.com |
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