The Productivity Show #33 - Randy Dean (PDA Email Guy)
Today’s guest is Randall Dean, The Totally Obsessed Time Management PDA Email Guy, who specialises in training people in productivity, dealing with email overload, and using PDAs. Oh, and he attended David Allen training long before Getting Things Done, so he’s seen it evolve.
Totally Obsessed Time Management PDA Guy and Email sanity expert.
David Allen early workshop - Randy attended a course in the early 90s, a planner system. Evolution to Getting Things Done and included Horizons of Focus for a higher view.
Business diversification - Corporate workshops, University sector, conference speaking, overseas work, open/public course, book, ebook.
Taming the Email Beast - Randy’s new ebook on dealing with email overload. 25-50% of the working day is spent on email, and less than 5% have had formal training on dealing with email. More info on emailsanityexpert.
Issues around email - Time spent on email. Not leaving enough time for the bigger picture. Bad habits around email, such as “blinging” - dropping whatever they’re doing to read email just arrived, which can drop their IQ!! Messy inboxes. 21,000 emails in an inbox.
Utilising Outlook Tasks - Do it in 2 mins or drag and drop email into a task. I didn’t know you can do this - drag the email to the task icon in Outlook, and it creates the task with the email text in the notes field. And saves the email. Cool.
Re-reading email - Waste of time. 3min one look rule for email
Media diet for a week and only look at email at midday and 4-00pm - 4 Hour Workweek
4 Hour Workweek - Get rid of 4/5ths of everything you think you need to do!
Single Tasking - Working on one task at a time and stop multi-tasking. Stop the send/receive on your email.
Find a new desk or work area - Working at home, set up another blank desk another room. Grab the one thing you want to work on and take it out for a coffee!
Major Satisfactors = Major Success - Randy’s first book. Major Satisfactors. Fun/Energy. Necessities (Eat and Pay the bills). Empty Satisfactors (TV, too much news). A brilliant way to sort out the things you do into the four sectors. Love it.
Ask a waiter for the news!
Working from home - Give yourself time for fun during the day, rejuvenating. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
PDAs - Pick the device, or no device, that works for you.
The Outlook 5- Email, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Context - synchronised with Blackberry.
Blackberry email - Do as much as you can on a PC/Laptop keyboard. Use Blackberry to clean up junk and Spam. Use deletion key, and answer emails on laptop, or brief reply on Blackberry.
Call phone number from email on Blackberry to not send email. Save time.
Don’t respond to email on a PDA - Or get a keyboard, or be 17 years old.
GTD - David Allen principles from 20 years ago and combined with Randy’s own principles.
Capture - Outlook and paper, portable office on the road. Tasks and Priorities. No distractions in a hotel room.
2-3 min rule after kids have gone to bed - Improves family life
Horizons of Focus - Long term goals
Daily Review - Pick up weekly what’s missing. Morning review of everything. Get things to top of pile. 3-4 hours of planning time per week.
Mid to long term goals - And look around your office to check if discipline is still there. Don’t let little things stack up.
Life Planning - Every 12 months
Get systems into place - If it’s not working, Get Help!
Promoting Your Business - YouTube, National Speaker Association, Books, Speaking, Networking, ecommerce, PR, Public Courses, Web enabled courses, MultiMedia, eBook. Spokes of the wheel. American Society for Training and Development. Alex Mandossian on teleseminars.
Outlook Tip - Drag email to task to create new task.
Randy’s love life! - More time to slow down and read books, self-help and fiction
Delegate more busy work - Time to grow company and delegate activities
Deep Dish Pizza - Chicago style Gino’s Pizzeria
First Concert - New question for Footballers Questions