Month: July 2022

Book: The Peter Principle

Todays book recommendation is very much a blast from the past. In 1969 Dr Laurence J. Peter wrote down a simple but powerful statement summed up as The Peter Principle.

A funny and witty perspective into what could be called “The vertical promotion fallacy”. I wish it wheren’t so but it seems to hold a lot of truth. Being promoted vertically is not more of what you do today but a whole new ballgame, atleast in part.

Can you really be prepared for such shift? Will you succeed or will you be miserable? Are promotions really the path to happiness or are we just fooling ourselves and end up doing a bad job and hating ourselves for it?




How I made E-mail work for me, and maybe you!

E-mail is a fantastic thing that has been around for quite some years now (long before Internet was a thing). In the begining it revolutionized communication and helped millions to be more productive. You could connect almost instantly around the world and time zones was not a problem anymore for global companies.

The Runaway Inbox

It is a pretty picture isn’t it. But you and I know that it’s not always so. All of the sudden the trickle of e-mails become a flood and an orderly inbox explodes and now you have +200 unread e-mails and the keep coming. Then you start receiving e-mails that say something like “Did you get my last e-mail?”. Now e-mail has gone from something useful to a source of angst and stress.

I, as many of you, get lots of e-mails every day. I use it for work, communication, to keep myself updated with what going on in our plant and the company as a whole. But e-mail is just a tool. There are tricks and practice in using any tool to make it work for you.

This is my way of working and it works well and I hope you can take something from it.

Inbox Zero

The base of my method is something called Inbox Zero where the goal is to adress E-mails immediately and thus never build a backlog in the inbox. However i find this hard to maintain since I am not 100% deskbound. I spend alot of time away from my computer and sometimes it piles up anyways.

My adaption is more like Inbox ToDo. Anything that can be handled directly I do. Informative e-mails that may be needed later are sorted into appropriate folders. I don’t use automated filtered sort so that I am actively deciding what to save and what to discard. Anything still in the inbox represent a task to be done.

Benefits of the Method

Beside giving me focus on what is to be done there are other benefits as well. Many have commented that I am quick to respond and appreciate this. Many questions you get only require a short answer and by responding promptly you let the sender get on with their work without delay. A win for both parts.

I am not always able to respond immediately but I always get to it eventually since it is there waiting in the inbox. This in my opinion is a matter of respect for your colleagues.

This is the short version on a way I have found to be quite effective. I hope you can take something from or maybe find your own way to make it work for you.