By default, most email programs sort email by most recent first, with unread messages shown in larger or bolder font. The result? Our attention is often hijacked by the latest thing arriving at our desks. But there's no reason to chain yourself to the default sort order. Could sorting your email inbox a different way help preserve focus, improve personal organization and reduce stress? Related posts:

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Do we really know how good decisions get made? Gary Klein dissects ten common claims about the "right" way to make decisions and shows that none of them hold true in complex, ambiguous and dynamic situations. Related posts:

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Can we rely on search alone to find the information we need? After using Outlook folders to organize my inbox for many years, I switched to Google Apps and let its search features do the heavy lifting. Want to know how it worked out? Read about the results of my experiment in personal information management. Related posts:

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Organizing by folders versus relying on search is one of the most contentious debates in information management. It's also one of the most pointless. You can't know which is better for an organization or for an individual until you know how the business works and what the goals are. Instead of debating, we should be celebrating that there are multiple ways to locate the information we need. Related posts:

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The Shallows is a thoughtful meditation on what the new tools of the Internet Age have in store for the way we live, think, and work. But despite all the hype behind e-readers, online databases, search engines, and real-time streams, Nick Carr is skeptical that these technologies will improve the quality of our thoughts and discussions. Related posts:

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