“Waxfogram” High Resolution

 

 

 

Introduction:

I found a post by Michael Waxman via Hacker News (my #1 source) this morning. I started this post with the idea that I would just write a couple sentences and then post the link to Michael’s article. But before I did that, I started reading carefully and there are so many moving parts, I had to build my own (Waxman + infogram =) Waxfogram to boil the email methodology down to something understandable.

Ray Tracing:

When I taught MBAs and engineers in St. Louis, I had one off-the-scale-genius who introduced me to ray tracing. And as I studied Michael’s post, then looked at the programs and tricks he is employing, I began thinking of incoming messages as rays.

This then led me to think of Waxman’s tools in three categories: before-inbox, within-inbox, and without-an-inbox. This table breaks down all the tools Waxman discusses into these categories:

 

GTD Interpretation:

None of what Michael Waxman did in his email contradicts GETTING THINGS DONE. David Allen repeatedly talks about controlling the information that you allow to come into your life and inbox. But, Waxman has creatively extended the idea of controlling input. Using Unroll.me and Sanebox (and even arguably outbound only email, since not seeing your inbox prevents unwanted distraction from incoming email) are all input control tools.

I’ve always ass-u-me-ed GTD as something I do after “stuff” arrives in my inbox. But Michael Waxman’s system and explanation caused me to question this and reminded me to be more creative.

Enjoy!

bill meade