Organize IT

This guest post was written by Daryl Furuyama of WhiteHatBlackBox.

James wrote a post a little while ago discussing the myths about simplifying your life and he has been kind enough to let me explore the myth a little more. Living a simpler life is definitely appealing. I sometimes imagine living without the hassles of everyday life – paying bills, cleaning the house, dealing with people that aren’t particularly nice. Sometimes I wish I could just give it up and breathe. Just looking at a person meditating brings up feelings of peace and calm that I want in my life.

If I had to choose two books that have most influenced what I write about here at Organize IT, it would have to be Getting Things Done and The 4-Hour Work Week. Very mainstream and unoriginal I know, but there is a reason why they’ve sold so well. For me personally, as a package deal they complement each other well. GTD helps with how I do my work and 4HWW helps with cutting out all the junk so I can focus on the most important things.

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The mind sweep (or mind dump) is a key part of GTD. In fact I would say it’s a key part of getting productive in general and living a healthy, stress-free lifestyle. In basic terms it is a way of getting thoughts out of your head onto something external so that you can organize and process them appropriately.

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Last week I published a guest post by John Anyasor on how to take revenge on your email inbox. He made a good point about sharing your email address. It’s very easy to just put your address out there, use it to register on a bunch of sites without a second thought, mention it in conversation on forums, etc. However, this all leads to your inbox filling up with junk that you have no interest in (I’m not just talking about spam here either) and is just one example of bad email habits.

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This guest post was written by John Anyasor of HiLife2B.

Email has been the culprit of countless wasted hours for as along as the internet has been in existence. Spam, promotions, emails from family members and coworkers, newsletters… it’s all too much. And this doesn’t even include the colossal number of replies that you have to send in response. I can’t take it anymore. Who owns my life? Me or my inbox? The answer to that is obvious of course, but achieving it is easier said than done, right? How are we going to curtail the use of our email if it just keeps coming into our inbox? Well, it is actually easier than you think. It’s all a matter of knowing how to control your emails and better manage your inbox.