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Inbox Freedom
Inbox Freedom is a the first productivity and efficiency system designed from the ground up to deal with the demands of the modern workplace. The authors of this book are two Silicon Valley technology executives who have spent countless hours refining their own productivity systems to deal with the ever-increasing demands on their time. Both felt that the most popular books on organization and time management had some good principles but didn’t reflect the modern world of work.
In the past decade, the pace of change has accelerated. The emergence of powerful smartphones, tablet computers, cloud computing services has led to a tremendous increase in connectivity and communication at work. As a consequence, many of us feel overwhelmed by the demands on our time. The volume of emails, text messages, documents, and other work-related communication continues to grow but our notions of productivity and efficiency are still rooted in a world that was dominated by the phone, fax machine, and printed paper.
Most of the seminal works in organization, time management, and productivity where written before the rise of mobile computing, smartphones, and cloud computing. While many of those works had strong tips for coping with a world dominated by paper and printed work, the world of work has changed substantially. All of us are expected to produce and share more written work in digital form than ever. The modern professional faces an almost unsurmountable number of challenges, including the following:
-The “always on” culture enabled by smartphones, tablets and ubiquitous access to data on the go creates the expectation of 24x7 availability and productivity.
-People are expected to stay on top of an ever-increasing volume of email with limited tools for prioritizing and filtering incoming messages.
-As the number of important tasks competing for your attention continues to grow, the pressure to make sure you’re working on the right task at the right time continues to increase.
Inbox Freedom will give you a framework for thinking about how to approach your work so that you can be more focused at work and less anxious about the things that aren’t getting done. Inbox Freedom will give you the tools to think about how you deal with the four core aspects of most people’s work - email, tasks, documents, and notes - and to build a system that will help you become much more effective at work and in life.
For many, managing email is the biggest challenge at work. That is not surprising to us. While many of us learned to read in elementary school and were taught to write effectively in high school and college, the modern workplace does little to help people become more effective or be thoughtful on how to structure their work. We devote a significant portion of the book to helping your benchmark your current mastery of email management and providing specific tactics and tips you can use to improve.
The other key theme in the book is the importance of maximizing what you can do with the combination of your smartphone and cloud computing. We believe that the emergence of the smartphone connected to cloud computing resources is one of the most important developments in the world of work and most people are not taking advantage of what that combination allows.
Inbox Freedom is designed to be a fast read with lots of specific tips and tactics you can use to become more effective and productive immediately. Highlights of the book include:
Specific tips and tricks for increasing your ability to manage email in less time
A comprehensive list of cloud-based tools and apps you can use to double your productivity
Two productivity audits that will benchmark your current mastery of email and your smartphone, with specific tips and advice for how to improve
Inbox Freedom is approximately 100 pages in length and is available exclusively on the Kindle.
In the past decade, the pace of change has accelerated. The emergence of powerful smartphones, tablet computers, cloud computing services has led to a tremendous increase in connectivity and communication at work. As a consequence, many of us feel overwhelmed by the demands on our time. The volume of emails, text messages, documents, and other work-related communication continues to grow but our notions of productivity and efficiency are still rooted in a world that was dominated by the phone, fax machine, and printed paper.
Most of the seminal works in organization, time management, and productivity where written before the rise of mobile computing, smartphones, and cloud computing. While many of those works had strong tips for coping with a world dominated by paper and printed work, the world of work has changed substantially. All of us are expected to produce and share more written work in digital form than ever. The modern professional faces an almost unsurmountable number of challenges, including the following:
-The “always on” culture enabled by smartphones, tablets and ubiquitous access to data on the go creates the expectation of 24x7 availability and productivity.
-People are expected to stay on top of an ever-increasing volume of email with limited tools for prioritizing and filtering incoming messages.
-As the number of important tasks competing for your attention continues to grow, the pressure to make sure you’re working on the right task at the right time continues to increase.
Inbox Freedom will give you a framework for thinking about how to approach your work so that you can be more focused at work and less anxious about the things that aren’t getting done. Inbox Freedom will give you the tools to think about how you deal with the four core aspects of most people’s work - email, tasks, documents, and notes - and to build a system that will help you become much more effective at work and in life.
For many, managing email is the biggest challenge at work. That is not surprising to us. While many of us learned to read in elementary school and were taught to write effectively in high school and college, the modern workplace does little to help people become more effective or be thoughtful on how to structure their work. We devote a significant portion of the book to helping your benchmark your current mastery of email management and providing specific tactics and tips you can use to improve.
The other key theme in the book is the importance of maximizing what you can do with the combination of your smartphone and cloud computing. We believe that the emergence of the smartphone connected to cloud computing resources is one of the most important developments in the world of work and most people are not taking advantage of what that combination allows.
Inbox Freedom is designed to be a fast read with lots of specific tips and tactics you can use to become more effective and productive immediately. Highlights of the book include:
Specific tips and tricks for increasing your ability to manage email in less time
A comprehensive list of cloud-based tools and apps you can use to double your productivity
Two productivity audits that will benchmark your current mastery of email and your smartphone, with specific tips and advice for how to improve
Inbox Freedom is approximately 100 pages in length and is available exclusively on the Kindle.
90 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 3, 2014
10 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 8, 2017
A colleague recommended this book a little while ago because it changed the way she dealt with everyday work tasks. I found many of the recommendations I actually already do (which are super helpful for managing my time and energy), but I did pick up a few tips and realized my tricks might need to be shared with my employees to help them manage their time, too. Quick and easy read--but I agree with authors that if you want more than surface level gain from their app/system recommendations, you've got to dig in and spend more time becoming familiar and implementing a new system for yourself.
February 24, 2014
Admittedly, I was probably a bit ahead of the curve when I decided to read this book. As someone who is very busy, and drowns email regularly, I really wanted something to help me clear out what I currently have. This book is almost geared toward someone who seems to be a novice to email in general, which I am not, and which I assume most people are not. Nevertheless, there are a lot of handy tips here that would be worthwhile in terms of reviewing our current email practices, such as a lot of the Gmail keyboard shortcuts. I found those exceptionally helpful in terms of the speed with which I go through my emails on a daily basis. The authors issue a caveat that there may be things in the book that would not mesh with the way we work, and I think that for my own productivity, I will probably just have to work better at it. But I feel that this book probably could help some people out. For a quick read it was pretty decent.
February 23, 2015
I enjoyed the book. Gave me fresh ideas for managing email and not thinking of the inbox as a task list which makes me reactive. Stresses using archive feature and moving away from folders which is a remnant of paper filing system. With search engines of email it's no longer necessary to take the time to put items in folders because it is easier to retrieve items using search. Resources are given for managing tasks. Authors also cite the bible of productivity Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
June 17, 2015
This book brings techniques from books like Getting Things Done by David Allen and The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People into the age of mobility. It is a rather short read and contains various practical tips and tricks, which might be useful for a generation not raised during the Internet age, but for those who have been does not contain much news.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews