rewrite the whole site

Signed-off-by: Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>
Sponsored-by: author

1 files changed, 0 insertions, 171 deletions

diff --git a/inboxes.mdwn b/inboxes.mdwn
deleted file mode 100644
index cc6c5f1..0000000
--- a/inboxes.mdwn
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,171 +0,0 @@
-Inputs and inboxes
-==================
-
-Consider how you deal with e-mail. All your e-mail arrives,
-automatically, unbidden, unwanted, unloved, in one or more inboxes.
-You might have one inbox for work, and another for personal use.
-Further, you might have automatic filters that move some incoming
-e-mail into other folders: software developers are often on many
-discussion mailing lists, each of which goes into its own folder.
-Each such folder would be a separate inbox.
-
-A common anti-pattern for people is to keep e-mail in their inboxes.
-They read it, and leave it there. The next time they read e-mail, there
-might be some new mail, which they read, and leave there. Eventually,
-the mail piles up a lot, and it gets hard to find a specific mail you
-may need. Even more importantly, it gets hard to know which mails still
-require you to do something. Perhaps there was a mail from your boss
-you need to re-read? Or a mail from your mother that you need to reply
-to? Or perhaps you replied to her already? Can't remember if you did?
-
-Treating an e-mail folder both as an inbox and an archive of old mail,
-and mixing it further up as a list of things to do, leads to confusion,
-angst, and stress.
-
-Let's make a small change to e-mail handling. Let's keep only
-unprocessed e-mail in the inboxes, and do one of the following things
-for every e-mail in each inbox, after reading it:
-
-* delete it, if it is unlikely to be of further use; for example, spam,
-  or stupid jokes from friends
-* reply to it immediately, if you can, and it will only take a minute or two;
-  for example, your mother asks if you'll be visiting next weekend, and you've
-  already made plans with your partner to go on holiday, so you can reply
-  at once saying sorry, not this weekend
-* move it to a "needs replying" folder, if the mail requires a reply, but
-  you don't have time to do that right now
-* forward it to someone else, perhaps with a cover letter, if it's their job,
-  not yours, to deal with it; for example, it might be a question only your
-  boss can answer
-* move it to an archival folder, if you think you might need it later on
-
-(Compare the above list with "do, defer, delegate, delete, or file" from
-the Quickie overview chapter.)
-
-When you have time, you look into the "needs replying" folder, and reply
-to one or more mails in there. After you've replied, you delete or archive
-the original mail.
-
-With this change, you have a better handle on your e-mail. You know that
-anything in the inbox is unknown and needs to be processed, and anything
-in the "needs replying" folder needs some action, and that anything you
-might need later is in the archival folder. No other mails require any
-action, and any mails that do require action are easy to find.
-
-This will make you be much more relaxed about your e-mail. You never need
-to worry whether you've replied to everything that needs replying. A further
-benefit is that you're likely to reply to mail much faster than before.
-
-Work versus personal inboxes
-----------------------------
-
-It can be quite stressful to have to deal with work while you're
-supposedly in your free time. Configuring your e-mail so that your
-work mails are not visible on your own computer, or not visible
-unless you're actually working, is quite a good idea. Keeping the
-work and personal inboxes separate is a first step.
-
-If your work e-mail is not in your face all the time, it's easier
-to ignore it, and that makes it easier to relax.
-
-Other kinds of inputs
-------
-
-The same processing principles work for all kinds of input, not just
-e-mail. You should collect, whenever possible, all inputs in your
-life into inboxes, which you regularly process until they're empty.
-For each inbox item you decide whether to discard it, do the required
-action immediately, do it later, delegate it to someone else, or
-whether the item just needs to be filed.
-
-Hackers tend to mostly deal with digital inputs, but there's always
-some physical ones as well. If nothing else, TPS reports and voicemails
-about their
-cover sheets. If you have more than a couple of inboxes, you may
-need to keep a checklist of them. For physical inboxes, it is often
-easiest to have as few as possible, but experiment with what works
-for you.
-
-Your phone may also be an inbox. For example, text messages, voicemail,
-notes you write on the phone, photos and videos you take, etc., are all
-inbox fodder.
-
-When an input can't easily be put into an inbox, put a proxy there
-instead.
-
-Inbox processing
-----------------
-
-Some inboxes you should empty frequently, several times a day. Some
-can be done more rarely. For example, I usually process my
-physical inbox once or twice a week, since any items that go into
-it tend not to be urgent.
-
-When you've processed an item from the inbox, you need to remove it
-from the inbox. This means you need to have a place to put it, even
-if it is only the trash. We will cover filing systems and other related
-tools later.
-
-Bug trackers: not really inboxes
---------------------------------
-
-Hackers tend to deal with bug trackers, ticketing systems, and similar
-systems. These are not purely inboxes. They're also sort of project
-lists, and next actions lists. I have found it most efficient to use
-them as places to trawl for inbox material. It's not possible to
-remove items from bug trackers just because you've decided what to do
-with them. Instead, I review the list of open bugs, and see if there's
-anything there that's new or that I need to deal with. If there is, I
-add a proxy into my own inbox (or, sometimes, directly as a next action).
-I might have a project in my GTD system for a particular bug.
-
-It's often the case that the total number of open bugs is so large
-it's overwhelming. I have found only one way to deal with that: keep
-dealing with subsets of the bugs that are most important, and try to
-handle bugs at least as fast as they're reported. The rest of the
-bugs may have to languish for a while, but if there's more of them
-than you have time for, that's unavoidable.
-
-Inboxes a la Lars
------------------
-
-Here are the inboxes I use:
-
-* physical inbox: letters and other mail, notes written on paper, etc.
-* wallet: receipts, other bits and pieces that get collected during the day
-* notebooks: notes made while out and about and phone/laptop wasn't available
-* backpack: random stuff tends to get collected there
-* phone text messages
-* phone call log
-* phone notebook: I use a note taking application on my smartphone as
-  a replacement for a notebook, when I can, because my handwriting font
-  is abysmally hard to read
-* e-mail: this is two inboxes (personal vs work); I no longer have a separate
-  folder for each mailing list, everything goes into the same inbox
-* feeds: blogs, news sites, etc.
-* home directory for each computer I regularly use: tends to collect
-  random downloaded files, notes, etc.
-* web browser bookmarks: I move any bookmarks I want to keep to
-  a link page on my website, the actual bookmarks are just a quick
-  way to save something for later
-* all of my bug trackers: I develop software, each project has a bug
-  tracker, and those need to be reviewed; unfortunately, it is not always
-  possible to treat the bug tracker as a proper inbox as separate from an
-  archive
-* inbox.mdwn: a plain text file (actually using markdown syntax),
-  an all-purpose digital inbox for ideas, notes, URLs, phone numbers, etc.
-* all my ikiwiki instance's comment moderation queues
-* unprocessed photos from camera phone, real cameras
-* laundry that is drying or is dry: this sometimes gets delivered on my
-  desk by my partner, I then need to fold it and put it away; at other times
-  I realize it's dry fast enough to take it down from the clothesline first
-
-Information overload
---------------------
-
-Sometimes processing inputs in this more efficient manner is still not
-enough. It may be that you're getting so much input that it's just
-not possible to deal with all of it. In that case, you need to filter
-away unwanted stuff automatically, or stop it from being sent to you
-in the first place.
-