Are you smarter than a third-grader?

This week’s tip is brought to you by the most amazing third-grader on the planet: my daughter.

As I was checking over her math homework tonight, she told me that kindergarteners (remember, to a third-grader, they’re babies) don’t use UPSC. I said, “youpie-what?” and she patiently explained that UPSC stands for a four-step method of problem-solving, which I immediately realized was the answer to my dilemma (finding something fun to write about here), because you can apply it to pretty much anything. Here you go:

1. Understand
2. Plan
3. Solve
4. Check

I’d love to apply this to a word problem that begins “If a train leaves Cincinnati at 50 miles per hour carrying 150 pounds of grapefruit…” but I’m going to use a tech example I’ve been working with for several weeks: A clogged email inbox.

Step 1: Understand. What is the problem here? I’m buried under an avalanche of emails, that’s what.

Let’s examine this a little bit, though. If the burying were the only problem, I could solve that by closing my email account, or not using my computer — not viable solutions for me. So part of my problem is the sheer number of emails I get, and another part of my problem is locating and managing the emails I care about. A third part could be actually having the time to deal with these important emails.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Clarifying my goals, I want to:

• receive fewer non-important emails
• deal with the important ones as they arrive (keep my inbox as close to zero as possible)
• not spend a lot of time on this process (I want to save time, not spend it)

Step 2: Plan. So let’s check out some options. Right now, I’m only going to address the first goal, which is reducing the sheer number of emails (specifically, non-urgent or non-important emails) I’m getting.

The most obvious type of non-important email is spam. And you can pour a huge amount of time and energy into avoiding spam, with marginal results. So the simplest thing to do about it is to immediately delete (marking as “spam” or “junk”) all spam emails, and not spend one more second thinking about it.

However, remember (as I wrote in this post) that you should not hit the spam button for email that’s not really spam. And I have two more posts about dealing with non-important, but non-spam, email. One is setting up email filters, and one is using RSS for things like newsletters to keep them from cluttering your inbox.

So my plan might look like this:

1. When I check email, delete spam immediately and don’t think about it.
2. Set up three email filters for the three most profligate senders (or categories)
3. Set up an RSS reader and subscribe to three newsletters that I currently get by email

Step 3: Solve. I’ve got my plan. So now I can just do it. The spam-deletion thing is something I can do easily each time I check my email. The email filters and RSS do require a commitment of time and energy to set up, so let’s say I take half an hour for each of these tasks, and put that into my schedule.

This is where it’s tempting to say “Yay! I’m done!” While it’s great to celebrate these accomplishments, there’s one more step. The step that turns this process into a self-tuning path to constant improvement.

Step 4: Check. Now I get to ask myself the question: How is this system working for me so far? It’s been a couple of weeks since I set up those email filters. I can go check the folders and see what’s been filed there. If I notice that the filters weren’t picking up what I thought they would, I can tweak. The great opportunity is this: when I see that these folders are filling up with emails that I really didn’t need to read, I can give myself permission to just unsubscribe! And even if I want to keep them around just in case, they still won’t be cluttering my inbox.

Same with RSS. If you’ve found that you’re not checking your reader, that could mean that you need to make it a habit…but it could also mean that the stuff in your reader really isn’t that important, and you can drop the desperate need to keep up with that particular pile. Bam! You’ve just saved yourself a bundle of time.

And now you can go back to the Understand step, and see what problem you want to tackle next, or maybe you have a clarified understanding of the problem you’ve been working on, thanks to the Check step. Look how far you’ve come!

Lather, rinse, repeat. Tweak, play, and remember to give yourself a gold star at the top of your homework paper. Third grade can be so much fun!

This week’s heart of the matter: Take it from a third-grader. The same four-step process that helps solve those pesky word problems in the math book can be applied to nearly any problem, and in fact it’s great for technological stuff because it can shift the “help, I’m overwhelmed!” into taking one step at a time.

Until next week!

Related posts:

1. Email Filters
2. Email Overload
3. What exactly is an autoresponder, anyway? (Heart-Centered Tech Tips)
4. All about RSS