Quote:
Originally Posted by colicoid
I think the fact that you are forced to process inbox items is very good.
David Allen says that you should process inbox items in a very strict manner, e.g. regardless of the items priorities. So if item #1 is something like "buy milk" and the second item is "read letter from the president" you still have to process #1 first. By process I just mean that the item should be moved into your structure and assigned a context.
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Well, yes, but...
My interpretation of David's pages on this matter are that as long as you do process everything in the inbox on a regular basis, the order isn't particularly relevant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Allen, GTD, 'LIFO or FIFO?' p. 123
As long as you go from one end clear through to the other within a reasonable period of time, though, it won't make much difference.
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I think he's just trying to discourage you from wasting a lot of time shuffling through the stuff in your inbox, looking for something "fun" or "easy" to do, and touching things without deciding on how to process them, thus letting stuff linger longer than it should. With the OF inbox, it only takes me a second or two to "shuffle through" a dozen or more items, so I don't think I waste an appreciable amount of time doing so (I probably waste as much or more time waiting for OF to redraw the inbox when I go to look at it!) If my inbox gets big enough to put up a scrollbar on my Macbook screen, I know it is time to do some more processing, even if I just emptied it this morning.