Following Susan Schreitmueller's advice in the 28-hour Workday presentation she gave, I started replying in subject lines and using [EOM, NRN] to indicate the end of the message and that no response is necessary.

Not everyone's familiar with this convention, so I always included a short explanation in the body of the message. After a number of these EOM/NRN messages, I created an AutoHotkey macro to save me a few keystrokes. I set up !eomnrn to expand to "EOM - end of message, NRN - no response needed", and I used that in the body of the message.

I thought it still took too many keystrokes and mouse clicks to reply to a message, add my note to the subject line, add "[EOM, NRN]" to the end of the line, and type in the explanation in the body of the message. In fifteen minutes, I whipped up this little LotusScript agent that prompts you for a response, puts it in the subject line with an explanation, and sends the message off.

In Lotus Notes, use Create - Agent to create an agent called something like "1. EOM - NRN". Edit the agent and put this in the Initialize sub.

	Dim workspace As New NotesUIWorkspace
	Dim session As New NotesSession
	Dim db As NotesDatabase
	Dim collection As NotesDocumentCollection
	Dim memo As NotesDocument
	Dim reply As NotesDocument
	Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
	Set collection = db.UnprocessedDocuments
	Set memo = collection.getFirstDocument()
	While Not(memo Is Nothing)
		Set reply = memo.CreateReplyMessage( False )
		response = Inputbox("Response to " + memo.Subject(0))
		If (response <> "") Then
			reply.Subject = response + " re: " + memo.Subject(0) + " [EOM, NRN]"
			reply.Body = "EOM - end of message, NRN - no response necessary"
			reply.IsSavedMessageOnSend = True
			reply.Send(False)
		End If
		Set memo = collection.GetNextDocument(memo)
	Wend

Then you can select the message(s) you want to whiz through, type Alt-A 1 to call the action, and reply quickly. You can also call it while viewing a message, which is probably a safer place to start.

Enjoy!

Worth reading! The Renaissance Soul gives down-to-earth advice for people who thrive on variety and challenges in a number of deep and rich interests. The book helps people identify their passions (plural!) and follow them without feeling overwhelmed by choice. It's also clear, well-written, and full of concrete stories. I like it!

—-

A number of people have told me that they admire the way I know what I'm doing. My grade school teachers were completely unsurprised by my choice of a college major. My love for technology can be traced to childhood, and on the surface it can seem like I'm one of those people who know what they want to do and how to do it.

However, my teachers and friends have also always known that I can have a hard time focusing. In university, I switched from mobile computing to wearable computing to personal information management to education. I take up hobbies and let them go at some point.

The best thing I took away from the book is the idea of a focal point sampler. Identify four things you're passionate about. Figure out if you're the kind of person who pursues things sequentially or who prefers to enrich life by blending things together. Make it happen. Key point: you're not stuck to these four choices forever; you can change your mind and try different flavors next time. It's like sampling flavors in an ice cream shop...

I think my sister Kathy should read this book, too. =) Good book. Thumbs up!

—-

Notes:

On Technorati: book, notes, career, life

- The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One