Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about what to do with those f
Speaker 1: y eyes for your information emails or other such messages
Speaker 1: people send to you. A few strategies can help you
Speaker 1: keep the information handy without clogging up your current workflows.
Speaker 1: In life, we all receive information that we find valuable
Speaker 1: but can't do anything with at the moment. We received
Speaker 1: these in our personal lives, like a recommendation for a
Speaker 1: great h fact guy, but you don't need the system
Speaker 1: service for another six months or so. People definitely receive
Speaker 1: them at work, and you will receive more the higher
Speaker 1: up you go in management. People send you information that
Speaker 1: you don't need to actively respond to, but you will
Speaker 1: wish to know, or at least you will be held
Speaker 1: accountable for knowing. The temptation is to think that you
Speaker 1: will just remember these things, but you won't. Sometimes people
Speaker 1: create elaborate email filing systems with such f y eyes
Speaker 1: for each different project. But again, if you never look
Speaker 1: at these files, then the information may as well not exist.
Speaker 1: But there are a few things you can do to
Speaker 1: keep such material from slipping through your fingers. Well, that is,
Speaker 1: if you don't want it to slip through your fingers.
Speaker 1: Some f y I stuff isn't really useful information. If
Speaker 1: that's the case, go ahead and delete it. It will
Speaker 1: be okay. If you do decide to keep it, you
Speaker 1: can just leave it in your inbox. I personally don't
Speaker 1: delete f y I emails that I find interesting, nor
Speaker 1: do I file them. Email search engines are pretty good now,
Speaker 1: so if you know the name of the person and
Speaker 1: the topic, your search engine will likely be able to
Speaker 1: find it. Sometimes you don't even need to remember the center.
Speaker 1: I know some people think that sounds terrible because they
Speaker 1: want to get to inbox zero, which I personally don't
Speaker 1: care about. But if a pristine in boxes for some
Speaker 1: reason a point of pride for you, then you can
Speaker 1: create an archive file with all of these f y
Speaker 1: I sorts of notes. Then you need somewhere else to
Speaker 1: nudge you to remember the information's existence when you are
Speaker 1: going to need it. This requires one more active step,
Speaker 1: but this step makes the process more efficient. So when
Speaker 1: you receive an f y I that you actually think
Speaker 1: is going to be useful, take your best us as
Speaker 1: to when you are going to want to know this information.
Speaker 1: As we talked about in a recent episode, you can
Speaker 1: send a reminder to future you if you want to
Speaker 1: go through that list of a dozen pumpkin patches that
Speaker 1: a neighbor sent you. You can put a note to
Speaker 1: yourself on your calendar on let's say in October Friday
Speaker 1: of next year, with a neighbor's name and pumpkins. Ideally,
Speaker 1: this will nudge you to search the name in the
Speaker 1: word pumpkin and you will get to the list. Why Friday, Well,
Speaker 1: this is when I do my weekly planning, so I'm
Speaker 1: already in the mood for thinking about what I'd like
Speaker 1: to do with my time. It is highly likely that
Speaker 1: in October I would be interested in pumpkin options. In
Speaker 1: July not so much. For work, f y Eyes, you
Speaker 1: might attach some note to any upcoming meetings for that
Speaker 1: team our project. So if someone sends you ideas that
Speaker 1: are being batted around for pitching a client, the next
Speaker 1: time that team meets, you'll see the note and you
Speaker 1: can review the f y I as part of your
Speaker 1: meeting preparation. If it's a note about something you'd like
Speaker 1: to remember it let's say annual review time, you can
Speaker 1: put a note on a weekly planning time a few
Speaker 1: weeks before those reviews, so you will see it and
Speaker 1: go looking for the information now. Of course, the more
Speaker 1: complicated f y eyes are stuff for which there is
Speaker 1: no obvious time. The first question is are you sure
Speaker 1: you care? I used to say things like the names
Speaker 1: of good bottles of wine. Then I realized there are
Speaker 1: a lot of wine recommendations in this world. I'm better
Speaker 1: off just choosing something I always buy for people and
Speaker 1: leaving it at that. But if you think you will care,
Speaker 1: then make what productivity guru David Allen calls a someday
Speaker 1: maybe type list with a few notes about this thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the name of an excellent hotel in Paris,
Speaker 1: and you would like to go to Paris someday, but
Speaker 1: you know what, it probably isn't happening this year. Just
Speaker 1: keep a running list somewhere with all this stuff, and
Speaker 1: then make a time to review it occasionally. It really
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be frequent. Most of the stuff that
Speaker 1: goes in here won't be terribly time specific anyway, so
Speaker 1: it could be once a month or so. Ideally, in
Speaker 1: ten minutes or less, you could quickly scan through the
Speaker 1: whole list. If something does leap out as being something
Speaker 1: you'd like to actively put in your life, hopefully you
Speaker 1: have enough info in that little note to go back
Speaker 1: into your inbox or your email archive and search for it.
Speaker 1: My guess is that a lot of the stuff in
Speaker 1: that file won't really leap to the top, in which
Speaker 1: case you can just cross it off or delete it
Speaker 1: and stop worrying about it. But if it does, that
Speaker 1: little extra note will nudge things back to the top
Speaker 1: of your brain, so f y I actually becomes information
Speaker 1: you can use in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our target.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You can
Speaker 1: send me your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just
Speaker 1: connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast pod. That's b E the number four, then Breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart media dot com. That
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, should I look forward to staying in touch.
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