Google TechTalks
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58:42 · 511K views · Oct 9, 2007
Merlin Mann's 2007 Google Tech Talk on Inbox Zero, covering Getting Things Done, why an empty inbox matters, and strategies for handling high-volume email. It is a talk on attention and processing mail rather than on emptying it for its own sake.
Cited as the original Inbox Zero talk, and for Mann's point that optimizing how you organize tasks is no substitute for doing them.
4 comments from Hacker News
For years, I have been using the Inbox Zero method ( this video ) to stay sane. It really does help. I regularly empty my inbox while others seem stuck in the hell that is 9,000 unread emails. I have known people to declare email bankruptcy. Why should anyone have to declare defeat to a productivity tool, let alone one that didn't exist when my parents were born? Insanity! Even with my successes reigning in email, I realize that I have it backwards. Technology should adapt to us, not the other way around. I'm interested to see what Hey is all about.
"he would stand in front of management and say "no, fuck that, that's useless". He was quite successful and could "get away" with this behaviour, though I suspect it was this very behaviour which had something to do with his success." Your manager gets what Merlin Mann could not, the most important tasks are the ones you need to do ^right now^, to completion. It's interesting that Bethlehem Steel is mentioned. Charles R. Schwab, the Bethlehem Steel boss, someone who Thomas Edison described as a ^hustler^, engaged Ivy Ledbetter Lee to improve productivity at Bethlehem for managers. [1] What is not mentioned is the fact Lee was a business owner of an early PR company and approached Bethlehem for business. His hack to Bethlehem management, set aside 15 minutes at the end of a day and specify six tasks you need done tomorrow; * Prioritise them, one to six; * Do each task, in order, till finished; * Work your arse off; * Left-over tasks are added to tomorrows list; * Repeat; I coin this, JIT task task management [3] and that simple behaviour your manager shows reflects this simple idea. I Merlin Mann totally misses this fact. [4] I was so impressed with Lees idea I wrote an article and some software to explore this idea. References [1] James Clear, "The Ivy Lee Method" ~ [LINK] [2] "Zero Tasks: Maximum Six. Add new tasks to leftovers. Prioritise. Kill one task at a time. Repeat.", [LINK] [3] A month ago: " To-Do Lists Are Not the Answer to Getting Things Done" ~ [LINK] [4] Merlin
One thing I remember from watching the Inbox Zero presentation [1] by Merlin Mann a couple of years ago was the analogy he used involving a burger joint. Paraphrasing, he said that lifehacking is similar to optimizing the process of taking orders and organizing them, but at some point those orders actually need to be fulfilled. Otherwise you'll end up with a lot of angry customers, who don't care about what awesome optimizations you're doing behind the scenes! This is not to say that lifehacking is useless. Rather, the emphasis is that ultimately, you have to get things done. [1] this video
How does this software relate to the popular email inbox management method of the same name? Merlin Mann, "Inbox Zero", Google TechTalks, 2007-07-23. this video