*Waiting for someone to get back to me; Awaiting a deadline to occur; Awaiting an event to take place

Picture this – you have just sent me an e-mail requesting something of me that you require. Now this is work for me to do (what we refer to as a ‘Turtle’), and what is it for you? If you said “Pending”, you got it.

Your having hit the ‘Send’ button (and being a diligent follower of the ChaosOver system), you immediately went to your ‘Sent’ file and, lo and behold, there at the top of your ‘Sent’ file (actually, according to our program, this should be the ONLY item in your ‘Sent’ file), is the e-mail requesting information from me.

Now for those of you using Outlook (this will also work with many other systems), you now drag this e-mail down to your ‘Calendar’ bar, let go, and voila, the body of your e-mail appears in your calendar for the day.

Why is this so terrific? Because…ALL PENDINGS HAVE TO BE CALENDARED. Now all that you need to do is the following:

• Change the date from today’s date (unless today is actually the day you intend to follow-up with me).
• Log the of time of day you wish to contact me.
• On ‘Subject’ you log: (PE) Len re: Acme Freight proposal (The symbol ‘PE’ denotes the location being in your  E-mail’s ‘Pending’ file.)
• Lastly, now drag the e-mail sitting in your ‘Sent’ file into your ‘PENDING’ (PE) file.

Congratulations, as you now have…
“THE PLEASURE TO FORGET”

Do you avoid completing certain projects until the last minute when your back is up against the wall? Do you keep seeing the same items turning up on your “To Do List” day after day after day?

Are you one of those people who insists you work better under pressure? Then you are probably one of the millions of people in this country who suffer from procrastination and I do mean “suffer”.

Procrastination has many negative side effects:

• It eats up valuable time
• It reduces productivity
• It sabotages others
• It lowers self-esteem
• It causes an enormous amount of stress…just to name a few.

Now you may be asking yourself, “If procrastination is so bad, why do so many people do it?”

Some of the reasons are:

• I don’t like doing that particular task
• I don’t know how to complete the task
• I don’t like the person who assigned me the task
• I don’t feel confident in my skill level at that particular task
• The task appears too large to tackle.
• There’s too much work involved
• ETC.etc.etc

Regardless of the reasons for procrastinating, the results are still the same. The task does not get completed in a timely fashion.

Our Information Management program at ChaosOver, Inc. is designed to facilitate you in eliminating FOREVER the habits and patterns that have not served you. Procrastination is one of those behaviors. So how do you eliminate it?

You do it by processing the tasks or projects you have been avoiding, one at a time. Let’s use an example to illustrate the process:

Let’s say you have to write a report on a topic that doesn’t particularly excite you and is going to involve a lot of research and a lot of your time. The report was assigned to you on March 1st and is to be completed by March 15th. Today is March 6th and you still haven’t started it. You know you are procrastinating.

First step in the process is to go through a series of questions:

• Do I still need to complete this task? If the answer is yes go to question 2. If it is no, toss it.
• Can this task be delegated to someone else? If the answer is yes, delegate it. If the answer is no, go to question 3.
• What are the benefits of completing this task? In our example above the benefits may be :
  • My boss will be happy with me
  • The client will be happy and we may get more business from them
  • Our company will make money on this
  • I may get a raise, promotion, accolades
  • I will get it off of my plate and stop stressing over it.

• What are the consequences of not doing it? Again using our example:
  • My boss will be very unhappy with me
  • I could get fired or, at least, reprimanded
  • I could miss out on a promotion
  • I could be sabotaging a co-worker
  • We could lose a client
  • Our company could lose money
  • I will continue to stress over it and feel badly

Now that you have answered these questions, the task has taken on some life, some emotion, and has the ability to motivate you to action. So what do you do next?

You break the task down into its various parts. In our example above that may look like:

• I do an outline of what the report is to cover
• I identify whether I have all the information needed
• I identify resources for obtaining the information I am missing
• I do my research
• I create a first draft with completed information
• I re-write until I am happy with the end report

Now determine how long it will take to complete the first step ONLY. Let’s say you decide it will take an hour. Go to your calendar, whether it be a paper organizer or a computer program such as Outlook, and book yourself an hour to complete this first step.

NOTE- You must treat this appointment as a sacred commitment the same as you would if it was an appointment with a client. (Knowing that you have a deadline for this project and it is going to take several hours to complete, be sure to book that hour as soon as you can into your schedule.)

When you have completed step one, do the same with the next step and so on until the task/project is completed.

If you use this process with ALL of the things where you would normally procrastinate over, whether they are business or personal, you will find yourself eliminating the problem of procrastination FOREVER as you create the new habit of getting things done in a timely fashion.

The result… you will be happy, productive, effective, self-confident, and far less stressed. So go get started….NOW!

In order to reduce the massive amounts of e-mail, the following procedure has worked miracles for many thousands of folks, allowing them to get to that magical number of ‘ZERO’ each and every day this way.

I am speaking about a time-tested and result-oriented formula to make this real for you. However, we need to begin at the beginning. The beginning for most of us is just how to deal with the hundreds, if not thousands, of accumulated e-mail that has created this loss of control and inability to manage it all.

You are being asked to do this in steps, steps that will work for you…if…you will subscribe, and commit, to the process. So, here goes:

NOTE- The format will be via Microsoft Outlook, however this can be done the same way with other e-mail providers.

Step #1- Be sure that your e-mails are in chronological order (this should be the way you find them). Scroll down to the oldest date. Now begin scrolling up from this oldest date and, WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE ‘SUBJECT’ COLUMN OR THE ‘FROM’ COLUMN, JUST BY DATE ALONE, and determine how many of these oldest e-mails on up you are willing to simply ‘DELETE’. The criterion should be based on your ability to sleep soundly having gone as far as you are willing.

NOTE- Let’s say that you began with 1,800 e-mails in your In-box. After step #1 you now have 1,440 e-mails remaining.

Step #2- At the top of your e-mail screen you will find the ‘FROM’ icon. Click on this and that will place your e-mails in alphabetical order. Scroll to the top. Now begin scrolling down looking only at this ‘FROM’ column. Look for groupings from the senders of three or more. (The ‘ones’ and ‘twos’ will be dealt with shortly.) By just looking at the names, see which groups you are willing to delete. There are 22 sent to me by Harvey Shmed. Harvey is not someone we do business with any longer and there is no need to file away his e-mails. Good-bye 22 e-mails. Again, the criterion should be based on your ability to sleep soundly having gone as far as you are willing.

NOTE- From this step you have deleted another 500 e-mails, leaving you with a remaining 940 e-mails.

Step #3- Scroll back up to the top. Keep your eyes once more on the ‘FROM’ column and begin scrolling down, however this time see what groupings (remember-three or more per name), can be simply placed into one of your e-mail folders. You come across 14 from Bob Bennett. Bob is our website designer. I have a folder entitled ‘Website’ therefore I can safely drag and drop Bob’s e-mails into my Website folder.

NOTE- From this step you have dragged and dropped 436 more e-mails, leaving you with 504 e-mails remaining.

NOTE A- I have seen countless times where e-mail folders are either few and far between or as disorganized as could possibly be imagined. However, for you, now embracing this training, e-mail folders are becoming terrific to work with.

NOTE B- I happen to champion the creation of as many folders are as necessary. This is to include ‘Sub’ folders and even ‘Sub-Sub’ folders. Why? Because this creates the shortest and most expedient artery to take you immediately to the specific information you are seeking. (Sounds like ‘INSTANT RETRIEVABILITY’ to me!)

NOTE C- Leslie has made her ‘CLIENT’ folder, yet she currently has 52 active clients. So, guess what? Leslie spent 30 minutes setting up 52 sub-folders.

Step #4- At the top of your e-mail screen you will find the ‘SUBJECT’ icon. Click on this and that will place your e-mails in alphabetical order via the names of the subjects. Scroll to the top. Now begin scrolling down looking only at this ‘SUBJECT’ column. Look for groupings of three or more. (The ‘ones’ and ‘twos’ will be dealt with shortly.) By just looking at the subject titles, see which groups you are willing to delete.

NOTE- You have deleted another 210 e-mails in this manner, leaving you with 294 e-mails remaining.

Step #5- Scroll back up to the top. Keep your eyes once more on the ‘SUBJECT’ column and begin scrolling down, however this time see what groupings (remember-three or more per name), can be simply placed into one of your e-mail folders. You come across 19 from Sallie. Sallie is our payroll clerk. I do not have a folder entitled ‘Payroll’, yet I do have an ‘Accounting’ folder. There is nothing to prevent me from making a sub-folder entitled ‘Payroll’ and dropping the 19 e-mails from Sallie into my new sub-folder.

NOTE- You have delivered another 180 e-mails out of your In box by dropping them into current folders and sub-folders (or making them newly), leaving you with just 114 e-mails remaining.

Step #6 (Final Step)- It would seem obvious that the remainder of your e-mails in your In-box are either ‘Turtles’, ‘Pendings’, ‘Library/Reference’, ‘Clients’ or ‘Projects’, ‘Archives’, ‘Personal’ or ‘ChaosOver Info’.

NOTE- Due to COMPLETION being a foreign entity to a vast majority of Humankind, bite the bullet and go through these 114 remaining e-mails, placing them each into either ‘Trash’ or the proper folders that are intended to be their ‘Home’.

CONGRATULATION AS YOU HAVE ZERO E-MAILS IN YOUR IN-BOX.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…Now you will want to do the same with your ‘SENT’ e-mails. The ‘Sent’ file is the place that many folks use as a ‘subterranean archival area’. The objective is getting this file to ‘ZERO’ as well:

Step #1- Click on the ‘Sent’ enabling all of your Outgoing e-mails to be in chronological order. Scroll down to the oldest date, asking yourself- “Without looking at the ‘Sent To’ or ‘Subject’ columns, just based simply on age of the Outgoing e-mails, what date am I willing to delete up to and still be able to sleep peacefully at night?” Then do that. (Of course, if your answer is “No, I won’t be able to sleep doing this”, then simply move on to Step Two.

Step #2- Click on ‘To’ and scroll to the very top. You now have the remainder of your e-mails in alphabetical order. Begin to scroll down searching for groupings of three or more sent to the same person. Without looking at ‘SUBJECT’ or ‘DATE’, simply by name, see how many may be deleted in this fashion.

Step #3- Click on ‘SUBJECT’ and scroll once more to the very top. Now begin scrolling down and looking only at the ‘SUBJECT’ column, seek out groupings and determine which ones can be deleted.

Step #4- It would seem obvious that the remainder of your e-mails in your ‘Sent-box’ are either ‘Pendings’ (in fact, quite likely), ‘Turtles’, ‘Client’ or ‘Project’, ‘Library/Reference’, ‘Archives’ or ‘Personal’.

CONGRATULATION AS YOU HAVE ZERO E-MAILS IN YOUR SENT-BOX.

And, last but surely not least, for that feeling of overwhelming joy…delete all of the deletes in your ‘DELETED’ file.

Welcome to the beginning of a whole, new way of life in dealing with your E-mail.
You will never again have to reside in “E-mail Hell”.

By sending the response to me via ‘New’ I am not in touch with my questions (which Bob may not have responded to for days). Receiving something like this:

Hi Len,
Here are the answers to your questions:
- Friday
- No
- Yes
- 18
Bob

I have no idea what the questions were! Had Bob hit ‘Reply’, the questions would be in the same e-mail I originally sent for me to easily relate to.

Had Bob hit ‘Reply’ and gone directly to the end of each line of my questions and responded in a manner as I would have (in red and bold), I would find the most expedient, efficient and courteous manner to retrieve the information I am seeking. I would receive something like this-

Bob,

When would you like the proposal delivered to your client? Friday (in red)
Will we need to include the budget? No (in red)
Will you be accompanying me on the presentation? Yes (in red)
How many copies of the presentation should we prepare? 18 (in red)

With great respect,
Len

In today’s fast paced world that we live in, every time saving courtesy that we can extend to our business associates, family and friends is greatly appreciated. This allows them to recapture lost time and thereby reducing stress. Isn’t this what we all want? So be respectful to all the people you contact via e-mail, using your best e-mail etiquette.

Whether we have a home office as the primary venue to conduct our business or simply as the area to pay bills, sort the mail, etc., it needs to adhere to some very important guidelines.

Keeping in mind that in many homes there are space limitations, nevertheless your home office should be in a location that is as private as possible. In other words, a living room where you entertain or may have family members talking or watching t.v. is not a good place. The very last choice for your home office is your bedroom. The visual connection as well as the energy runs in great contradiction to the purpose of this room.

When you picture yourself entering a sanctuary or a temple, what would you bring as an offering? You would most likely bring fruit, incense and flowers. I am sure that you will agree that it certainly would not be trash or materials emanating from chaos.

Most home offices have the desk, the file drawer and equipment located in one area. Yet the files, the paperwork, the mail, the bills seem to take on a life of their own as they spread themselves beyond the ‘office’ area. They have journeyed to the dining room table, the kitchen counter, the top of the dresser and nightstand even into the garage (which is why the car is parked in the driveway).

What has happened is that the sanctuary has been desecrated. That place designed and intended as a place of respite has been trashed.

Our program deals with the handling of every bit of information you come in contact with, be it paper-based, electronically-held, verbal requests, etc, so as to have instant retrieveability of this information. Your commitment needs to ensure that all (as in 100%) of the paperwork and materials remain within the physical confines of your work environment. In my own home there is not so much as a paperclip (quite literally), that ever trespasses beyond the physical space of my office area.

In this way your home becomes that temple to experience peace, to commune with family and friends and to re-energize you for the following day.