One of the core concepts Davind Allen teaches in GTD is that you should have only one inbox. And you should deal with tasks and papers directly from there – the intention being that you only have touch things once. If you were to have a separate box to file things then you have to first look at something from your inbox and decide what to do with it – you then have to do the exact same thing again when you work through your To File box. This doubles the work you are doing and the time spent doing it.
This is great in theory, and I have been doing this for a good number of years, but now it is starting to fall down. You see, I am going through a rather busy patch (hence the reduced posts on here), and putting things into the inbox is a frequent task. Very frequent. So frequent in fact that I had to apply for planning permission for the inbox. And consequentially, important things that I have not read and opened languish in the bottom. Which is not good. How do you judge the time sensitivity of something without ‘touching it’?
My conclusion was that I needed 2 trays. My inbox of course. Then one for things that need putting somewhere else (in actuality I have 3 boxes – with one specifically for things that need scanning, but that is tangental here). I can now quickly sort through the mail and either bin it, put it in the To File box, or action it if it is important. I have the time to do this. I don’t have the time to file everything straight away.
