Minimizing Inputs

Posted January 20th, 2010 by Chris Gurney

I just neutered my BlackBerry.

The light went on (or rather, off) when I finally realized that I didn’t have to use the BlackBerry to do what it was designed to do, namely automatically delivering me my mail.

Now, I use the Gmail app, which allows me to check email on my schedule, without the constant reminder that there’s new messages waiting for me every time I look at my phone. The other awesome side-benefit to this is that I’m looking at the exact same inbox I see on my computer, so they stay in sync. Before, I had an inbox to manage on the Berry that I later had to reconcile manually against Gmail, even though they were technically the same inbox!

Here are some other ways I have minimized the flow of information into my life, either by eliminating inboxes, by preventing what sort of stuff goes into them, or by reducing the number of distractions they cause:

Online

• Three weeks ago I deleted (almost) all of my Google Reader subscriptions. Those of you who use Reader know that it can be addictive. It was my go-to place to catch up on interesting tech news, and what made it worse is that it was only a click away from my email. On top of that it created yet another Inbox that I personally felt I needed to clear out on a regular basis. This consumed too much of my time, both on weekdays and weekends. I’ve kept a handful of feeds to stay abreast of Toronto-related tech events, but that’s it. At first this was a hard pill to swallow, but I quickly got over it and I haven’t looked back.
• I’ve changed how I use Twitter, another time-waster. On my BlackBerry, where I tweet the most, I went from UberTwitter (which displays your friends tweets by default), to OpenBeak/TwitterBerry (which can default to a New Tweet box). Seeing friend updates just lead to distractions, links to follow, and not much value. On the computer, I now use TwitterBar (a Firefox/Chrome plug-in), and only use Twhirl when occasionally checking in on my other accounts. (I know TweetDeck is popular, but for me it was just too overwhelming.)
• From a productivity standpoint, Facebook’s new Reply by Email feature is a game-changer. This gives me one less reason to log in… and consequently waste time reading updates.
• Most importantly, though, I’m trying to reduce email checking to 2-3 times a day. At a minimum, I’m taking the advice of trying to complete something important as soon as possible in the morning, delaying the checking of mail until at least 11 AM.

Offline

• The No Junk Mail Please sign in my mailbox has been working fantastically for the past 2-3 years, but only because my mail person has been nice enough to honor it. (Your mileage may vary.)
• Whenever telemarketers call (and I choose to answer), I also continue to ask to be added to any “Do Not Call” lists they have. This has reduced the number of those types of calls to virtually zero.
• As per a suggestion I read, I’ve changed my voice mail message on my office desk phone. The new message encourages people to contact me via email, if at all possible, and via cell for urgent matters. Because I travel a lot, I believe that this is an acceptable request, as it also leads to quicker responses from me. (I have to wonder why we even have land-lines at work; I got rid of my home line years ago.)

Bottom Line

Again, I want my focus to be on producing content, not on consuming it. Reducing the number of collection buckets (inboxes) where stuff collects, and putting rules into place about what goes in, and then how it’s processed, is fundamental to this goal.

As I discover other ways of minimizing, you can be sure I’ll be writing (producing) content about it, here.

What have you done, or are considering doing, to reduce the unnecessary inputs into your life?

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