Hi Reader,
​
A confession, and then a count you can run in ninety seconds.

Try a count with me. Right now, list every place something can arrive and become your problem: every inbox, app, thread, pad and voice memo. Most people expect three. Most people find six or seven, and they built most of them on purpose, each one solving something real at the time.

Mini Insight

Here is what the count reveals, and it is not what most people expect.

The problem was never that I was disorganised. Everything got captured. Nothing was lost. The problem was that "everything got captured" was spread across seven places, and no single one of them could tell me what I owed anyone.

That is over-capture, and it looks exactly like disorganisation from the inside. You feel behind. You feel like you are dropping things. So you reach for the fix that feels right, a better system for capturing, and you add an eighth place.

The number of capture points a person can actually reconcile is small. For most of us it is one, plus wherever other people put things.

Try-This-Now (≤5 minutes): the capture count

1. List every place something can arrive and become your problem. Every one. Inboxes, apps, threads, paper, voice memos, the tab you left open as a reminder.
2. Count them.
3. If the number is above three, stop looking for a better system. That number is the problem.
4. Circle the one you actually check daily without being reminded. That is your real inbox; the rest are places things go to wait. Stop. This counts.

Pattern Tweaks

• Architect: You will want to design the consolidation before doing it. Circle the one first; the design can wait a week.
• Surfer: Do not migrate anything. Just stop feeding six of them and let them drain.
• Keeper: Some of those seven exist because someone else prefers them. Those stay. Count them anyway, so you know what you are carrying.
• Pilot: Your worst one is the fastest: the channel where people can reach you instantly and nothing is recorded. That is where promises go missing.

Living Profit (why this matters)

• Energy: Reconciling seven places is a background process that never finishes. It runs whether or not you are working.
• Relationships: Things do not get dropped because you stopped caring. They get dropped in the gap between two systems, and the person on the other end cannot tell the difference.
• Income & Opportunities: The opportunity that quietly expires is almost never the one you decided against. It is the one that landed somewhere you do not check.

Excelsior,

Pierre/
Founder, Curio Chat Academy

P.S.: If your email inbox is out of control or too laborious to maintain, I can help you with this. Find out how here .