A New Approach to E-mail
(Volunteers Wanted)

As you might know, one of the main things I think about is something called “attention management” — basically, how do we focus on the things we need to be focusing on, and how to we put aside everything else? It’s all tied up with productivity and motivation and habits and medicine and cognitive-behavioral therapy research. But that’s all somewhat theoretical and fuzzy. I have a practical approach to handling e-mail that I’ve been working on, and I’m eager to share it with you.

This new system doesn’t require any new technology, or super-restrictive rules (like “only check e-mail once a day”) or any herculean efforts at getting to Inbox Zero In 30 Minutes or anything like that. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite of all that. But the cool thing? It works. I’m more in control of my inbox than I have been at any point in my career. And the handful of people I’ve gotten to try this approach have said that it’s been working well for them, too. It’s a little David Allen, a little BJ Fogg (warning: BJ Fogg’s site currently auto-plays a video).

I’m not going to go into the specifics here, because this approach is still in a testing phase. In fact, much about it is probably wrong and needs refinement. So why am I writing about it here / now? Because I want more testers. Like you!

If you feel overwhelmed by your e-mail, and are interested in trying this new approach out, just e-mail me — charlie@charliepark.org — and I’ll send you the details. It’s free. It’s just that the approach takes a little bit of work, and the first hurdle you’ll face is simply e-mailing me.

To handle the volume of this, I’m sending out info e-mails to cohorts of 5 people a week, so the sooner you get in touch, the sooner you’ll be on the list, and the sooner your inbox will be under control.

I look forward to hearing from you, and to helping you work down your inbox.