We\u2019ve all been there: you\u2019re in the shower, or doing whatever, and it suddenly hits you that (just to pick an example) you need to renew your passport. You get out, dry off, pick up your phone to check which documents you need, and a notification pops up, you answer the message\u2026 and the passport is gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The passport will come back a week later, or at three in the morning, when there\u2019s nothing you can do about it, and it\u2019ll bring company: calling the plumber, buying your mom a present, that really important email you never sent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What usually happens here isn\u2019t that you have a bad memory. It\u2019s that you\u2019re asking your mind to work in a way it doesn\u2019t do well, to do something it isn\u2019t built for. That\u2019s why, today at duqe, we want to talk about the simplest tool in the GTD method (Getting Things Done<\/em>, by David Allen; published in Spanish as Organ\u00edzate con eficacia<\/em>), and for us the most important one: the inbox (or in-tray).<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done<\/em>, calls each of these things an \u201copen loop\u201d: anything that pulls at your attention but isn\u2019t where it should be, or in the shape it should be. They range from renewing your passport (something you have to do) to a vague idea that someday you should sort out the photos on your phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The thing about open loops is that forgetting them doesn\u2019t close them. They\u2019ll sit in some corner and resurface whenever they feel like it, and that will almost never be when you can deal with them. One of Allen\u2019s best ideas is relevant here: your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the scientific side, the Zeigarnik effect (named after Bluma Zeigarnik, who noticed a century ago that we remember interrupted tasks better than finished ones) is often cited as proof that unfinished business \u201csticks\u201d in our memory. However, a meta-analysis by Romain Ghibellini and Beat Meier reviewed almost a century of studies and concluded that this memory advantage doesn\u2019t hold up in general. What they did find is that we tend to go back to tasks we left half done: unfinished things aren\u2019t remembered better, but they keep claiming our attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two interesting studies pick up this thread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conclusion we can draw is that you don\u2019t need to finish something for it to stop circling in your head; it\u2019s enough for your mind to trust that it\u2019s written down somewhere reliable. That somewhere should be the inbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In GTD, the inbox, or in-tray<\/em>, is where you put everything before deciding what it is (a task, a reminder, information\u2026)<\/strong>. The first edition of Organ\u00edzate con eficacia<\/em> I read talked about a physical tray, for example, but these days, with how easy technology makes it, it will usually be a digital list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s the first of the five steps Allen proposes (capture<\/strong>, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage). It sounds obvious. Everyone \u201cwrites things down.\u201d What almost nobody does is write down everything<\/em>, always in the same place, without stopping to think. That\u2019s the real power of the inbox, even if it tends to be underestimated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rules of capture are few:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea is pretty simple. So why do so many people start out enthusiastic and, three weeks later, are back to trusting their memory? The usual suspect: friction (what duqe tries to remove). More specifically, it almost always breaks down in one of these three places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An idea lasts in your head for as long as it takes you to get distracted, which these days is no time at all. If writing it down means unlocking your phone, finding the app, waiting for it to load, and picking a project and a tag, you won\u2019t do it. Or you\u2019ll do it three times and then stop. Capturing has to be faster than forgetting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The notes on your phone, the WhatsApp messages you send yourself, screenshots, emails marked as unread, the Post-it on the fridge. Each one works as an inbox, but none of them is your inbox. If something is in one of five places and you don\u2019t know which, it might as well be nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing things down brings instant relief, so you write them down. But if you never look again, the inbox turns into a graveyard of to-dos, and of course your mind notices. As soon as it stops trusting that place, it goes back to its old habit: reminding you of things at the worst possible moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we can\u2019t treat the inbox like a mailbox that receives things: only we can put things in it. Nor can we treat it like a to-do list: whatever comes in has to be processed and moved to its place later, like a waiting room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I said, even though we\u2019re in favor of emptying the inbox every day, we can\u2019t let it become a chore (that would bring back friction, then procrastination, and then not doing it at all). Emptying the inbox doesn\u2019t mean doing what\u2019s in it. It means taking each item and answering the two questions Allen asks: What is it?<\/strong> and Is it actionable?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s the paradox. The tool you always have on you, which could be the best option for your inbox, is also a constant distraction. You take out your phone to write something down, but you have to find the app, open it, select the inbox\u2026 and not get sidetracked along the way. Once again, the passport doesn\u2019t get written down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is part of what we\u2019re trying to solve with duqe, and we share it as an example of how it can be approached, not as the only way. duqe is an Android launcher: it replaces your phone\u2019s home screen. So the first thing you see when you unlock it isn\u2019t your apps, it\u2019s your system. And on that screen there\u2019s a button that says INBOX<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tap it and a window opens where you can type anything, and it goes straight to your Inbox list. No picking a project, no tags, no date: just whatever crossed your mind, one way or another. If typing isn\u2019t convenient right then, you can attach a photo (from the camera or the gallery) or record a voice note<\/strong>. If you don\u2019t give it a title, it\u2019s saved anyway with a generic one, and you can fix it when you empty the inbox. It\u2019s rule 2 built into the design: capturing isn\u2019t deciding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For when you\u2019re not on the home screen, there are two more ways in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several doors, all leading into the same room. That\u2019s the difference from having five inboxes: it doesn\u2019t matter how something comes in, it ends up in one place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No app, duqe included, is going to empty your inbox for you. And that\u2019s how it should always be, because the value of the inbox will never lie in where you write things down, but in the deal<\/strong> you make with yourself: everything that goes in will be looked at, decided on, and put in its place. As long as you keep that deal, your mind will leave you alone, you\u2019ll work better, and you\u2019ll focus on what you\u2019re doing with a clear conscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to try it without installing anything, start tonight. Grab a piece of paper or your phone\u2019s regular notes app and spend five minutes writing down everything you have pending (big things, small things, ridiculous things). The next day, work through it, sorting out whether each item is a task, which project it belongs to\u2026 Chances are you\u2019ll move things forward better, and with a calmer mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, find a way to make capturing take even less effort than that (you can try duqe or organize yourself some other way).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And of course, if there\u2019s anything we can help with, or you\u2019re not sure how to start getting organized, feel free to get in touch through the form on the Help<\/a> page or by emailing us directly at info@duqe.app<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve all been there: you\u2019re in the shower, or doing whatever, and it suddenly hits you that (just to pick an example) you need to renew your passport. You get out, dry off, pick up your phone to check which documents you need, and a notification pops up, you answer the message\u2026 and the passport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duqe-features","category-productivity"],"yoast_head":"\nHow unfinished tasks affect us<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What is an inbox?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Why most inboxes fail<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Capturing takes too much effort.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2. You have too many inboxes without realizing it.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. It never gets emptied.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to empty it without turning it into another chore<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Where to capture when your phone is the very thing distracting you<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What no tool can do for you<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Sources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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