Autofocus: Simplifying E-Mail Even More

I'm now pursuing a much more "pure" form of Autofocus (AF) by removing my _Today and _Tomorrow inbox subfolders in Outlook (see my previous post on this). Now, as I process my e-mail at start, middle, and end of day (at least that’s my goal!), I put each actionable e-mail onto my AF list. If I identify a particular task as a genuine drop-everything emergency, then of course I’ll stop what I’m doing and I work on it. Otherwise, I’ll get to it during any discretionary time. I attach due dates to tasks that I must do on a certain day, and I move any tasks to my calendar that can only be done during a certain time range.

Do It Tomorow (DIT) advocates daily task lists, task diaries, “A” and “B” in-trays, “to do” and “will do” lists, and the like, but I feel like that’s overkill for me right now. I want something simple, and AF is about is simple as it gets. DIT has, however, taught me that I don’t need to stress out trying to get everything done in one day. If it absolutely must get done by a certain time, then fine. But for a vast majority of tasks, I’ll do it “tomorrow.” And so far, this is working for me.