Last week Aaron, Mark, and I spent a few days at the 10th annual SIDLIT conference. I picked up a lot of great 
information and over the next few days I’ll share a few summaries of what I found to be most useful. We’ve been going for a few years now and always enjoy the presenters, attendees, and great topics. It’s also completely free! I should also mention that Twitter was a huge part of the conference this year. Attendees were able to follow what was happening in sessions all around them. When posting tweets on Twitter, posters included the hashtag SIDLIT that allowed readers to follow the stream of information. (Huh?) Check out Aaron’s post on hashtags to get a quick explaination. 
Keith Krieger gave a fantastic presentation about cleaning up your email inbox and avoiding using it as a file cabinet. His tips were based on Inbox Zero, created by Merlin Mann. Use the four D’s on a daily basis to sort through your emails and end the day with a clean inbox.
- Delete – Be ruthless! If its not for work or long-term goals, then it goes.
- Do – If a task takes 2 minutes or less then just stop and do it! Tell the person who is requesting the task that it has been completed, then delete the email.
- Defer – If it cant be deleted or done immediately, turn it into a task if you must.
- Delegate – If you can, give it to someone else.
Keep your inbox layout simple. Get rid of file size columns and any addition information. We only want to know: Who is it from?; Does it have an attachment?; What is it?; and when did they send it? Also, get rid of flags to remember things later, this is defeating the purpose. The delete key is your friend!
Aaron | August 5th, 2009
I think this would be a great group activity for CRL–maybe a month-long “challenge” or something. Also: “Desktop Zero,” if such a thing exists
Keith Krieger | September 4th, 2009
I’m way behind on commenting, but I thought I would add a couple of thoughts.
Thanks for the kind words about the presentation. I glad people found it useful and helpful.
I referenced Mark Hurst’s book, Bit Literacy, for approaches and techniques. Hurst has some great ideas, although some of them are radical, even for knowledge workers.
http://www.bitliteracy.com for the book.
http://www.goodexperience.com for Hurst’s day job as a user experience consultant.
His list of online games is worth a look.
He also offers an online to-do list for people not using a system like Outlook or Groupwise.
I deliver a hands-on version of the session at JCCC. Some people like rewards, so anyone attending the hands-on session at the college who then sends me a screenshot of their empty inbox receives a merit badge:
http://www.nerdmeritbadges.com
Finally, Stratepedia driven by WP? I like the look.
Reminds me of some of these minimalist designs:
http://minimalexhibit.com/
Keith Krieger
Amber | September 8th, 2009
Thanks Keith!
5 ways to boost your e-mail productivity | Stratepedia Blog | March 12th, 2010
[...] D’s–delete, do, defer, delegate. For a few details, check out Amber’s post about Inbox Zero from last summer. Once you’ve cleaned house, make sure to pick up your nerd merit [...]
Registration for SIDLIT ed tech conference now open | Stratepedia Blog | March 23rd, 2010
[...] technology, you won’t want to miss it. SIDLIT has a little something for everybody, from tips for better e-mail productivity to ways to improve your videography skills. The best part about SIDLIT is its [...]