From the Mind of MandoRon

I wasn’t planning on a writing a sequel to my recent post, Of Inboxes and Men, discussing how people manage their inbox.  But plans change.  I recently read an older blog post from Michael Hyatt on the subject of email inboxes, and it’s got me rethinking my own email strategy.

A little background first…  Michael Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers.  I follow him on Twitter, and when he recently tweeted a link to a blog post on email inboxes, it caught my attention.   As a CEO, I imagine that he gets a lot of email.  I also know from his tweets, that he cleans out his inbox every night.  So I figured he would probably have something meaningful to offer on the subject of email inboxes.

I wasn’t wrong.  You can find Michael’s original post here.

In his post, he talks about how to clean out your inbox everyday and several strategies for making it easy.  But what really caught my attention was how he files old emails.

Simply put, he doesn’t.

He has one folder titled “Processed Mail”, and moves anything he might want later into that folder.  Then later, he uses the search features of the email program to find what he’s looking for.  Michael believes it’s more efficient and takes less time than using a lot of subfolders.

I use approximately 150 subfolders to file away old emails at work.  My system isn’t working.  I work a lot of different projects with a lot of different suppliers.  I never know whether to file old emails under the supplier’s name or under the project.  I end up doing a mix of both.  Sometimes it takes quite a while to find the right folder.

So I’m thinking about trying Michael’s advice.  It’s a big change and I’ve been thinking about this for several days now, trying to decide if it will work. 

I think my plan of attack will be to try it for a month, or so, without doing away with the older emails already in the subfolders.  I can always go back and refile the ”processed mail” folder later if I bail on the whole thing.

Thoughts?  Is anyone else doing this?

Over my lunch break Monday, I made a trip to the bank (technically a credit union) in order to withdraw some money from my savings account.  I gave the teller, who seemed a little frazzled, my account number and showed my ID.  She wrote the account number down on a slip of paper and the amount that I wanted to withdraw.  Then she had me sign the bottom. 

This was not the normal procedure.  It turns out that their computer system was down and they were having to do everything manually.

But here’s the weird part…  She gave me $500 cash without even looking to see if I had enough money in my savings account. 

Get this… they were trusting me, the customer. (Technically, I am a “member” since it’s a credit union and not a bank.)  Trust doesn’t seem very common in business to consumer transactions anymore…  Although, I once ordered a custom mandolin strap from a guy who will build and ship off of an email, trusting that the check or paypal will come through in a few days.  But I digress.

At some point, the credit union decided to take a risk and continue, as much as possible, providing services to their customers.  Of course, the credit union (and I’m not saying which one) put themselves at great risk in doing so.

What if I somebody had told me they were doing this, and I strolled in asking for money without even having an account?  What if I had made an honest mistake and overdrawn my account?  ($$$ = overdraft fees)

I’ve been to an Intrust Bank before when their system was down, but I was only making a deposit.  I have no idea if they would have given me cash.

So what’s your opinion?  Was the credit union doing the right thing?  Or were they exposing themselves to too much risk?

As I left work today, I updated my Facebook status to read: “I’m feeling especially opinionated today. Feel free to ask me for advice. You may get some unsolicited advice anyway…”  Suprisingly, several people actually asked for advice.

One of them was my Uncle Mark.  He asked for some advice on investing his 401k.  My response was to give it all away - investing in people yields a better return on investment.

A few minutes later, my wife handed me Monday’s Wichita Eagle and asked if I’d read the article about giving.  I had not…

Rant on!

The article summarized some analysis by The McClatchy Company on a recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey.  You can read the source article here.

This graph which I borrowed off their website says it all.

The poorest people in America are the most generous!  Seriously?  I have to say that this really blew me away.

Apparently, the rest of us are a bunch of schmucks.  The poor give twice as much, on average, as middle and upper class people.

Maybe the rest of us need to quit supersizing our #1 Value Meals, our cars, our houses, and our plasma T.V.’s, and focus instead on helping others and giving back to the community.

Start tithing to your church.  Buy food for the single mom working two jobs down the street.  Pledge money to NPR so they’ll end the pledge drive sooner.  Do something.

If you fail to invest in and support something bigger than yourself, you’re going to live a very, very small life…  Quit hoarding it all for yourself.  You can’t take it with you in the end…

Rant off…

Someone forwarded this to me at work today.  Congress really ticks me off sometimes.

Hello, and welcome back to what I believe is going to be my last post in the Lion Chaser’s Manifesto series.  For you review is part 1, part 2, and part 3.

I’d like to talk about one more statement in Mark Batterson’s “Lion Chaser’s Manifesto”.

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.

Keep making mistakes…

In my first supervisory position, I worked for a wonderful manager who gave me great freedom to experiment and learn.  He felt that people learned far more from failing then being told what to do.  His rule, however, was “don’t make the same mistake twice; and don’t make any big mistakes.”

I’m a firm believer in this philosophy.

Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch is too.  His most recent book, IT, take a lot about  learning by failing.

Last week, LifeChurch’s Swerve blog had three articles on failure by Craig.  I highly recommend checking them out.

• Failing Selectively
• Failing Forward
  
• Avoid Failing Fatally (this kind of goes along with my boss’ rule of not making any big mistakes)

What have you screwed up this week?