[systems] making the week possible

Let's assume that you're not head of an organization with its own secretarial staff and that you're in the position most of us are - wondering how to handle the flood of emails, the shopping, cleaning, work commitments, home security and so on. You could deal with this by using a concierge service but that's expensive and it cuts both ways. If you fail to handle even one detail a couple of times, it gets about that you're less than efficient and there goes your business. The people who stay in this business are good but the good ones are not cheap. So you might get someone to handle your correspondence and hire a cleaning lady to do the house once a week. A friend in Russia, who set up an introductions business, hired a woman to put in about three hours a day and her main task was to arrange the emails in priority order, with permission to deal herself with much of the pile. The way I ran my phone was to keep the answer machine on permanently. As there was no need to deal with people through the day and as I had commitments which required my undivided attention, I used no mobile. One friend asked me why I didn't get a number tracker such as he had, which intercepted all calls and filtered them for answering or blocking. My phone system was part of my overall security system. Firstly, there was a coded metal door to our house downstairs. Then there was a metal door on my landing. Then came my first metal door and the lock was so old that the key had bent into an S shape. Everyone said it was impossible and I once asked a bad boy friend of mine [who could break in anywhere] to try getting through my door. He concluded that special services could but the average punter couldn't. The wooden second door was not as secure. Next, I had no domaphone, i.e. no one downstairs could buzz me. I also disconnected my doorbell but made it look like it worked. So there were only two ways through. Either email me or phone and everyone I knew knew that they'd have to speak on the answer machine and then I'd pick it up if I recognized the voice. I had a key in a padded wrapper. I'd then go out to the back balcony and throw it down to them and they'd come upstairs while I undid all the doors from inside. That would be seen as OTT over here but only slightly excessive over there. No matter, it worked. Many hated this system and I lost a lot of outside business that way but even that was a good filtration system. The people who understood the reasoning were people I felt I could deal with. The rest - well, I was up to my eyeballs in commitments anyway. We all need some system to cope with the weekly pressures. Wonder what yours is.