Bit Literacy

I just started reading a book on Sunday called "Bit Literacy". The premise of the book is that we are all overloaded by technological bits and Mark Hurst presents a solution to overcome the clutter. The book is very easy to read and it's rather small. I could easily finish the book within 2 hours but I've been reading a little at a time to try and retain more. The first thing that Mr. Hurst tackles is your email. He advocates getting your email to zero messages in your inbox at least once every day. His methods are so simple that it made me want to hit my head and say "why didn't I think of that!" He also has a web based "to do" list that he advocates using at www.gootodo.com (stands for good experience to do list...don't care for the name but hey, that's ok). It is a pay service but the fee in minimal at $3/month billed every 6 months. The to do list has some great features but is a rather simple program that it makes keeping it up easy. The best feature that I've found is the ability to email your to do's. For example, if I get an email from somebody on something I need to do next week I can forward that email to 1w@gootodo.com. It will automatically put the subject line of the email as my to do and the body of the email as the notes on the to do. I can basically email whatever time line I need, today@gootodo.com, tomorrow@gootodo.com, 2d@gootodo.com, or a specific day like January29@gootodo.com. When you sign up for the service you enter up to 4 email addresses for the system to recognize.

I started reading the book on Sunday and I implemented the email and to do list changes on Monday. It's been 3 days of using Mr. Hurst's methods and my inbox has stayed empty (what a freeing feeling to not see all those emails staring back at me...) and my to do's get done every day. If you feel overwhelmed in your life by all the bits of information that is flying around this would be a great book for you to read.