What you are looking at is my inbox from work. Over the course of last year, I received over 11,000 emails at work and on most days, I start with zero emails in my inbox. As the Sr. Training Coordinator for a 700+ employee company, it is crucial to stay on top of my inbox & communicate in timely manner. As such I rely on several techniques ranging from Inbox Zero to GTD, to keep my inbox organized and cleaned out as much as possible.

Here's how I do it:

1. Keep, Trash or Archive - Think of every email as actionable. If I am going to work on it or need to respond to it, I keep it.  If it is not relevant to me or requires no action, then I throw it away. If I need it for future reference (i.e. receipts), I archive it.
2. Two Minute Rule - If I can respond to or take care of the email within 2 minutes, then I go ahead and take care of it. If not, then I move the item out the Inbox into a designated folder.
3. Folder Structure - You will notice that I have very few folders in my inbox. This is where the law of diminishing returns comes into play. Many of us create folders for every item under sun with the intention of being organized. The problem is that after a handful of folders, we forget where we put items or we run into situations where an email can actually go into two different folders. Keep your folder structure simple. Here's mine:
   
   Follow Up - any emails that I am waiting on a response. This allows me to quickly see who I need to touch base with again.
   
   Head Count & Training - these are special project folders created because I work in HR and need to reference them regularly. You might have a couple of project folders, but not too many. Sometimes I have a temporary project I am working on and I create a folder for it. When the project is over, I move it out.
   
   Later - these are items that I am working on next week and beyond.
   
   Now - these are items I am working on this week. I quickly see what I have on my plate at any given time. Furthermore, I can focus, because I am only responsible for the items in this folder.
   
   Reference - There is one folder you can not see in the screenshot because I have it archived. I keep all my receipts & account information in a reference folder. These are items that I have  no action associated with them, but I might need to refer back to later on.
4. Time Management - I do not keep my inbox open all the time. When I am working on a project, I only check or respond to email every two hours. This allows me to stay focused on my current job. If someone needs me, they can call or instant message me. 

What do you do if you need to look up a past email?
My trash can is searchable (at least in Outlook).  So if it is an email that I need to go back and find, 9 times out of 10 I can find it. After 6 months, items are permanently deleted unless I am required to save them for HR purposes.  This is set up automatically through my company's default archive settings. You can also set up your own archive settings depending on the software you are using.

What do you do to keep you inbox clean?

I ran into a problem the other day when I tried to upload a spreadsheet to a vendor's website. On our end, we had all of the dates in the spreadsheet as actual dates. The vendor needed the dates as text. Every time I tried to copy and paste the dates as text, they were rendered as a large number.

In order to work around the problem, you first have to understand the concept of displayed value verses actual value. In Excel, the displayed value is what you see in a particular cell and the actual value is what is in the formula. In the example below, we have the number 3 in cell C2.  However, the actual value is a formula adding together two other cells:

In Excel, dates are not actually dates. Instead they are a calculation of the number of days since Jan. 1, 1900. So when you type in 10/24/2012 into the cell, the actual value is 41,206 days.  So we have to figure out how to convert the date into text without it calculating this value. We can do this using the text formula:

=Text(Cell,Format)

In this formula, Cell refers to the cell you want to convert & format refers to how you want the cell formatted. In our case, we want to convert it to text, but keep the original slashes between the month, date and year. Here's how I accomplished it:

=Text(A1, "mm/dd/yyyy") 

The format part refers to month / day/ year. In this particular case, I want the year to display as 4 digits instead of 2 (i.e. 2012 vs 12). The end result was that my dates were converted to text but looked exactly the same as the original formula.

I was teasing (read: annoying) my wife the other night, when something unexpected happened. I told her I would stop with my sarcastic criticism for a kiss. She instantly plastered a hand on each side of my face, pulled me in, and kissed me. You would have to know my wife & a little bit about Excel spreadsheets to know where I am going with this post.

So let's back up and review an Excel spreadsheet. Fortunately for you, I have one readily available for analyzing and making spiritual analogies with. Mind you the names on the spreadsheet were changed to protect the innocent:

In this particular sheet, there is a column for departments. I have highlighted a cell that demonstrates the whole point of this post. You see in that column there are a list of displayed values. In this case, the displayed value is "NM Shelf Land". However, that is NOT the actual or real value. The actual value is a VLOOKUP formula, which I am not going to get into. My whole point is that there is a displayed value and an actual value. In the words of Optimus Prime, "There's more than meets the eye."

Now let's talk about my wife. If I could define her love language in three words, they would be: gifts, talking & sarcasm. If I could define my love language in three words, they would be: physical touch, physical touch & physical touch. You see it with my kids all the time. I am constantly picking them up, hugging them, kissing them, rough housing with them etc. Notice how my love language didn't make her list.

So the displayed value of her sudden kiss was simple a sweet kiss. The actual value was leaps & bounds beyond that, because Amanda gets me. It was my wife connecting with me in a way that I understood.

I think there is room for an analogy here in our spiritual walk as well. When we attempt to cultivate spiritual growth, we more often than not lack the patience to see the actual value. We get caught up in the displayed value: going to Bible study, saying a prayer before each meal, etc. Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 3:

For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

The actual value of our actions are in the hands of God. Those small acts of kindness do not go unnoticed by the Creator. So the next time you think about giving up, look for the actual value in your actions.

One of our 2012 goals at work was to integrate social media into our recruiting strategy. While I am not a recruiter, I have been involved in blogging, social media, etc since the late 90's. In fact, if you were to Google "Caedmon (my son) Leggett's dad", you would find a disturbing amount of pictures of me.I was very prolific early on in my blogging career and enjoyed the networking.

However, as I had more and more responsibilities at work, my social networking lifestyle took a turn and became second place to raising three children, being a husband, and trying to stay fresh and significant at work. Unfortunately, my spiritual growth also took the back burner. While I maintained all the knowledge from my undergraduate studies, the connection I once had with Christ grew stagnant. It was like remembering a really good childhood friendship. You think about how great it was, and wish you could go back. But that seems like an impossible hope compared to the reality you now live in. I'm just longing today.

My middle child turns 6 today and it makes me realize how quickly time has passed. I also realize that no one is stopping me from teetering the social world. Even more importantly, is that Christ is not some long forgotten friendship, but a very real and present king/friend waiting to breath life into me.

So I committed to writing to a new blog and blew it on my first week! Sorry guys/gals. It has been a tough week with me going to bed completely exhausted. We've dealt with our stove top going out to short circuited wire, a wheat weevil infestation in the pantry, general nausea and fatigue, and running out of dishwasher soap (and therefor doing them by hand).

So the last one is something my wife would refer to as a "First World problem." I agree. There are more that are far worse off than I. However, it explains why I completely wiped on starting the blog up again.

There is a reoccurring theme in my blogging world. One the one side, I want to be the blogger I was 5 or 6 years ago. It was a time when I was connected, had more hits on my site than I could ever imagine, and I had no problems coming up with interesting subjects to blog about.

On the other hand, I feel like this blog is past its prime and there is nothing new or original left to capture. However, every time I go to press the delete key, I feel the pain of letting go. I still want to be connected. And every time I read a good article and comment, I want an identity online. A place to stay connected without the worries of traffic.

The problem is that if you don’t have fresh content, your readers will not come back. My blog suffers greatly from a lack of content. Usually when I have an idea of something to write about, I don’t have the time. So where do all these people with fantastic blogs find time?

1. The first is finding balance. You always have to give up something to get something. To have fresh content on your blog, you have to give up time you would spend doing other activities like reading before you go to bed.

2. The second key is finding inspiration. In order to generate thoughts, you need something to think about. When you come across an article that stirs you, email it to yourself. This way you will have it in your inbox as a reminder to publish your thoughts on your blog.

3. The third key is linking. I saw my blog explode when there was a community around it and I was able to link to other thought provoking blogs. That’s the beauty of the internet!

Granted most of my readership is probably not reading the adventures of Drizzt Do’Urden. However, I came across a very interesting quote from the fictional hero of the Forgotten Realms:

“I would never pretend to understand another people well enough to demand that they change their traditions, yet how foolish it seems to me to hold fast and unyieldingly to those mores and ways without regard for any changes that have taken place in the world about us.” – From the Crystal Shard, Book IV

Drizzt was an enigma to his people. He was born a dark elf, living among an evil people where backstabbing and child sacrifice were common place. The dark elves or Drow lived far below the surface in the deeper parts of the earth. All his life he was taught hatred and self-interest, but he felt compelled to distrust the harsh teachings of his peers. Instead, he fled and eventually found himself among the “surface dwellers”. There he found the same harshness when others tried to kill him simply because he was a Drow.
The quote above is in reference to barbarians who lived among the plains of Icewind Dale. Despite centuries of civilization, trade, and growth, the barbarians still wonder as nomadic tribes and their only desire is to wipe out the other races. Drizzt was hoping to find something more than the dark past he left behind and stumbled upon a mixture of love and selfishness.
I think the quote is applicable to the Church today. We sometimes get so wrapped up in our culture that we become barbaric. We trample over any one or idea that we deem “unbiblical” without really having a case for doing so.
Well, enough of the geeky talk.

Head over to the Web Designer Depot for a moment: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/02/the-7-personality-types-of-bloggers-today/
I wondered after reading this article where my tiny little blog fit in the spectrum. Most of it could be filed under the Lady Gaga syndrome. I have been keeping a journal of some sort since the 6th grade. Blogs were a natural extension of my journaling habits.
Over the life of my blog, there has been fluctuations. At one point, I had 400 hits a day. This is miniscule compared to the uber bloggers out there, but it boosted my ego a little. I can remember back in 2004-2006 when it felt like there was a community of bloggers that ran in the same social circles as I did. That was my favorite part. Watching Christ transcend technology and bringing together people. I even had the privilege of meeting a few of my fellow bloggers.
Since then, some have moved on to write books. Others have started ministries. A few quit the blogging world as they moved on with their lives. I have just stayed in limbo. Actually, I went crazy, deleted all my blogs, and then came to my senses to start them over again.
Now I find myself pensive. What could this blog be? Will it ever reach that point where there is content that is thought-provoking without shoving it down someone’s throat?

"Is this a mistake?" It is a question that I have asked myself many times over the course of this month. I found myself asking it again a few minutes ago. I finished giving my last final (my final final if you will) of the semester and maybe the last one for the rest of my life. As students passed in their completed exams, a couple of them dropped a few notes of encouragment such as "Thanks for the class" and "I enjoyed this course." I had one student told me that this class was the highlight of their week because it was so interesting. As I walked across campus, I thought about these statements and in the back of my mind the question popped up. Should I have accepted the new job?

This would not be my first time to leave Wayland. I left back in 2007 to pursue a full-time career in web programming. After about 2 years of working from home, I came back to Wayland asking for my old job back. My supervisor graciously accepted me back. Within a matter of months, I was surrounded by people who loved me, encouraged me, and was genuinely interested in my success as a supervisor and an instructor. On top of returnign to friends and familiarity, I was also given the opportunity to teach several courses and I loved every minute of it! There is something about connecting with students, building new friendships, and meeting all the interesting people who will most likely go on to be brilliant contributers to society.

However, that chapter is closing. I will be cleaning on my desk exactly one week from today and I wonder if I have made a mistake. I am moving on to a new company in Midland, where I will be working on the IT help desk. I do not know if I will be given the opportunities to teach or if I will have the strong and loving support system that I have at Wayland. To be honest, I am a little scared.

At the end of the day, I just have to trust that "good" will come out of this move. I am doing what I feel is best for my family and I look forward to the new people I will meet in this journey.

Mozilla's Drumbeat is offering a new, open courseware for web developers called "Peer to Peer University: School of Webcraft" or simply P2PU: School of Webcraft. Their catalog of courses range from the seasoned pro to the newbies.

Honestly, this approach just makes sense. Instead of paying tuition, why not learn from your peers for free? In doing so, you network and collaborate with other users who know the content as well as you do. Your professors then are those who are teaching out of a passion for the languages and concepts of web development.  It is when we dive into this tacit knowledge pool that this concept of community emerges and is worth celebrating about!

Or maybe, I am just web nerd.

I finished reading this amazing, yet nerdy book entitled Say Everything. It is written by Scott Rosenberg and details the history of the blogosphere as we know it. Gizmodo, Blogger, Twitter, Google, MySpace, YouTube, Engadget..they are all in there. Scott does a wonderful job of taking the reader through the history of modern blogging from its very roots to the things we think of as standard today.

At any rate, this isn't a post about the book (I am horrible at book reviews). This post is about a quote I found in the book. A nugget of resurrection if you will:

Blogging gave my knowledge-grazing direction and reward. Writing a blog entry about a useful and/or interesting subject forces me to extract the salient features of the link into a two- or three-sentence elevator pitch to my readers, whose decision to follow a link is predicated on my ability to convey its interestingness to them. - Cory Doctorow

It breathed some life into what I had already felt. Over the past year, I kept changing the design of the blog. And once the thrill of the new design was gone, so was the luster to post. It needs to be rewired, rebooted, started over with a new internal structure. Granted it will be more random than my periodic Fantastic Fridays and religious thoughts (they will be there two). I hope that in the end you will find it as enjoyable as I do writing it.

I am very close to giving up on blogging. I have been blogging for over 5 years. When I started out, I had time, energy, ideas to cultivate a growing community around the blog. I was passionate about design and being a part of so many different lives that I ran into online. Now, I just feel burned out.

Not sure what to write any more and even if I was sure, I don't have enough time to really blog. At least not the way I once blogged. There are so many memories attached to blogging, that I am hesitant to give it up. I met so many people through the blogging world and have really enjoyed the relationships cultivated.

I am not throwing in the towel yet, but I am close to that point.

I love rollin' in my swagger wagon. Thanks Pete for bringing this to my attention:

This creed’s name is derived from the division of 12 statements. Traditionally, each statement is associated with one of the 12 disciples.  There is no biblical basis for this, but that it is the story that has been passed down. Perhaps I am too post-modern, but I am apathetic about the origins of the name. However, I was a fan of Rich Mullins and now I understand where he was coming from:

Disclaimer: Reader, allow me to ask forgiveness for the lack of bloggity blogness.  My wife and I have been sick all week and now the little one, who just turned 4, has strep throat and pink eye.

My wife and I were talking the other night about yet another small world moment. It seems to me they are always around us, but we fail to miss them because of very busy lives. As such, I wanted to share a few of my favorite “small world” moments.

This book came in from interlibrary loan today and I am thoroughly excited about it. If you were ever a fan of my Fantastic Friday posts, then you have most likely seen links to videos by the group Improv Everywhere. Essentially, they are a group organized by Charlie Todd and Alex Scordelis, who play pranks in massive scale. One of the more famous pranks is when a group of 200 plus "agents" froze in Grand Central Station for approximately 5 minutes, leaving bewildered onlookers to figure out if time had actually stopped.

In this book, they cover the objective of each "mission", how many participated, and documents how they organized the pranks.It is going to be a fun read and I am so excited that I may have to go look up all their videos on YouTube!

Have you ever been there?  That place where spritual growth and daily life collide,  forcing one to rise above the other.  More often than not, we are like water being pushed through canal bending in and out in whichever direction is easier.  Al to often it is daily life that seems the easiest.

I am not so much dissappointed in this blog as I am of my lack of desire to study the truths of God more. I can remember specific points in my childhood and youth where reading the scripture and prayer were daily highlights.  Now, between the responsibilities of being a father, a husband, and an employee, it seems like those basic, yet essential spiritual disciplines are more of a daily leftover that I might dig out of the fridge every couple of weeks.

Yeah. You probably had the same thought that I had when reading the title of the post. That is largely 'gag me', followed closely by a 'border-line pantheism'. Or at least that has been my frame of reference for many years.  Admittedly, Christian environmentalism conjured up more than just tree huggers for me. There was a little more depth to it, in that I thought all Christians should care some what about taking care of the earth, because we are to be stewards of it.  After all, God did give us dominion over what He created:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. - Genesis 1:28

However, I still find this view lacking. Especially in light of love. My mentality was "take care of the earth because we are to be good stewards".  My mentality is now "take care of the earth because people live on it." You see, there is a slight change in perspective.  If I am called to love my neighbor as myself, then I am bound to do what is in their best interest.  I conserve water because other people need that water as well. I use reusable grocery sacks so that "paper or plastic" becomes neither.

Our environmental concerns should not be spurred by a sense of duty as much as a sense of love and genuine interest of those around us.

Feed Readers: There's a video attached to this one.

Special thanks to Angie for this idea.