It’s been a while since I’ve posted here but that’s only because big things are happening.  I’m launching Constant Change Coaching with a focus on Stay-At-Home Dads, something near and dear to my heart.  Also wrapping up some projects with Vekkin Solutions and looking forward to getting TeaWithKG.com rolling.  Lots going on.  Trying to stay focused and crank things out.

Saturday my wife and I leave to go on a 5-night cruise.  Like a lot of people before they go on vacation, I made a list of all the things I need to do before we leave.  I sat down with a legal pad and within a matter of 20 minutes I generated 3 pages of tasks.  This was everything I could think of, including some items which could wait until after the trip, but I didn’t want to forget them so on the list they went.  I went to bed shortly afterward with the list lying on the nightstand.  For the next 45 minutes I continued to think of items and jotted them down by the light of my cellphone as the list grew to 4 pages.

I started my day early this morning digging into the items which had to happen today.  But for every one item I crossed off, I thought of three more to take its place.  My initial plan was to transfer all of the items into my trusted system, a pocket-sized Moleskine notebook, to use as my master task list.  I decided instead to transfer only those items that would have the greatest impact on my vacation time.  I applied the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule, and transferred the 20% of tasks which would generate at least 80% of the results I desired. What was my criteria?  I asked one simple question:  What’s the worst that could happen if I don’t get this done before we leave?

If I could live with the worst case scenario then the task didn’t make it to the master list.   Some items, like “Find passport”, were no brainers.  Others were no brainers in the opposite direction.  Like “Return library books”.  I think we’ll survive with a fine of a couple dollars if I don’t get 5 books back to the library on time.  There were some gray areas, mostly related to clients and I believe most of those can be mitigated by setting expectations before I leave.  If I were going to be gone for 3 months, client related tasks would take on more importance.  But five days is a reasonable amount of time as long as statuses are communicated effectively ahead of time.

What happened to the 80% of the items which didn’t make the master task list?  By default they are going on the Someday/Maybe list, for those of you familiar with GTD.  Maybe I’ll get to them, maybe I want.  Maybe by the time I get to them, it won’t matter and I won’t have to do them at all.

Before I could really decide which tasks to transfer to my master task list I had to know what the end result would be.  For me it was simple:  To be on vacation with my wife and friends knowing that everything is well taken care of regarding my children, my clients and my finances.  If I could live with the worst case scenario for a task that didn’t negatively impact one of these three areas, then it didn’t make the cut.

So the next time you look at your to-do list and you have a finite amount of time to complete items, try these two questions:

1. “What is the end result I am working towards in the time I have allotted?”
2. Then for each task ask, “What’s the worst that could happen if I didn’t do this?”  or “Would not doing this negatively impact the end result I desire?”

Answering these questions can bring more clarity and allow you to quickly pare your task list to the essentials.  Sometimes we get so caught up in completing to-do lists that we can forget to step back and make sure that what we are working on is really going to generate what we desire.

Well the first week of not checking email constantly turned into a harder experiment than I originally imagined.  Not because I thought my willpower needed improvement.  No, I knew that before I started.  I was invited to work on a new project involving a communications strategy for a non-profit in Haiti which is getting a lot of positive press right now because of their contributions since the quake.  I visited Haiti in February 2009 for a week and know several of the folks involved in this particular organization.  So how did this cause me to check email more frequently than I planned?  Simply put, I’m passionate about helping these folks.

The other folks on this project are passionate, too.  So we’ve communicated whichever way was appropriate at the time: in person, direct calls, conference calls, Twitter, Facebook, Google Wave, IM, Ning message boards and of course, email.  Because we want to get the project up and running as soon as possible I didn’t want to miss anything.  Overall, I probably checked email about the same as before the experiment, but I added a ton of additional channels to keep up with.  And when I checked email, I was looking for items from certain people and I ignored the rest until one of my “scheduled” email times.  The rest of the time I was using HootSuite on my laptop or TweetDeck on my phone.

The introduction of AwayFind into my workflow was essentially a non-event.  No one complained that I wasn’t available.  No one griped about the auto responder.  No one filled out the form to contact me because of an urgent issue.  No one said anything.  And I think that’s awesome.  Because it revealed two important truths:

1. I’m not as important as I sometimes think.  No one needs 24 hour access except my family and they know where to find me.  The world isn’t going to end and I’m not going to lose my clients, assuming #2 occurs.
2. As long as expectations are set, most people will respect my communication preferences.  I set those expectations with clients via my email signature or the auto-responder .  I was initially worried that my experiment would run counter to my earlier post about companies expecting their clients to communicate a certain way.  However, I’m not saying I won’t use email.  I’m just stating my availability.  If a client were to ask me about my email strategy, I would let them know that by working without interrupting myself to check email, I am able to finish projects more quickly and with higher quality.  Isn’t that what you’d want from someone if you were paying them by the hour?  Plus, if someone expects me to check email constantly, they may not be an ideal client for me to engage with as this could be an indicator of an urgency-addicted personality.

As we wrap up the project I’ll continue to check my email less frequently and find better ways to manage the multiple channels that are available for use.  I’ll also post an entry dedicated to AwayFind early next week for those not familiar with their product.

This week I’m changing how I check email. I’ll check email twice a day, around 10am after I’ve finished one or two tasks that relate to my highest priorities. I’ll check again around 4pm before I’m “done” for the day. This allows me to handle any last minute items that crop up before my work day ends.

As a stay-at-home dad, my work schedule is anything but traditional or normal. I work when I want to and hang out with the kids more than anything.  So these times for checking email aren’t etched in stone or on my Google Calendar.  The standard I  will attempt to maintain is to check once in the morning and once in the afternoon.  Because I often work at night after the kids have gone to bed and I’ve spent some quality time with my wife, I’m sure I will probably check email a third time.  This third time is only because I’d hate to work on a project late at night and find out the next morning there was an email waiting which negated my efforts.

Here are some of the questions I’ll be working through this week and my initial attempts to mitigate:

• What if someone really needs to get in touch with me and they only have my email address?
  I’ll use an autoresponder to let folks know I’m only checking email a couple of times a day.  The email will contain a link to the AwayFind.com service.  A person can fill out their information online and I’ll receive a text message that someone needs to speak with me.
• What about my phone?  It’s so easy to check email there and “cheat”.
  Most of what I’ll be using my phone for is text messages.  These short, real-time conversations are much more useful than emails in my opinion.  If I need to talk with a person who is texting me, I’ll know if they’re available for a call and we can hash things out with a quick call.  I’ve had push alerts turned off on my phone for a while now and I’ll try removing the mail icon from the bottom icon bar.  If I have to scroll to the last page to find the mail, I’m less likely to just click the Mail icon out of habit.
• What about the folks I send an email to and am waiting on a response to that may be time sensitive?
  This will require some discipline on my part.  I have to remember in the email to request the person to call my Google Voice number and leave a message if I don’t pick up.  Or to send me a text message with the answer.
• Since I keep a lot of my project materials in my GMail account, how do I access them without getting sucked into the Inbox?
  I use Google Desktop on my machines and have it set to index my Gmail account.  When I search Google Desktop, the emails are included in the results and only the emails I open are viewable.  There is no view of the Inbox or a count of unread messages.  This makes it easier to focus on the emails I’m searching for and not be concerned about what’s sitting unread in the Inbox.
• Am I not trading emails for text messages and voice mails?
  This could very well happen.  I’m comfortable trading text messages for emails initially because of the real-time nature.  If I find I’m being interrupted with SMS alerts consistently, I’ll tweak my approach as needed.

If you’d like to learn more about managing your Inbox and some recommended steps you can take to get things under control, here are some good resources:

• Email Zen: Clear out your Inbox
• How to Check E-Mail Twice a Day….or Once Every 10 Days
• AwayFind.com

I’ll update at the end of the week with results from this email test strategy.