Just like opinions, everyone has agendas. In fact, I would argue that agendas are an extension of opinions. You form agendas from opinions, and goals from agendas. This thought process is heavily engrained into our survival and communal genome as a means to help ourselves and others we care about to be successful. But, I would argue that where people clash is not in having opposing opinions, but rather having conflicting agendas. It is easy to see that an opinion is emotionally charged based on an individual's life experiences. However, because agendas are more goal oriented, the emotionally charged roots are often shrouded. Vince Gowmon makes some awesome suggestions on how to temper placing agendas on others in his nicely written article, Hold the Agenda of Others : "What I invite you to consider is that there are many circumstances where we can withhold our agenda for others just a little bit more. Perhaps you allow your staff to share more of their own ideas; in schoo...

As a software developer, program manager, small business owner and digital viking with shade-tree mechanical inclination on the side, it is often a daunting, if not impossible, feat to clear out my Inbox.  In fact, this hasn't happened in so long that I don't rightly recall when was the last time.  So, I thought I would take a few moments, now that I don't have this cloud hanging over my head and tell you a little bit about how I have been able to accomplish this heroic moment. Use Your Tools As with anything in life, if you don't get the right tools, or even worse, use the tools ones you have them, it is just a big fat waste of your time.  As you can see in the screenshot above, I use Google's Inbox platform for emails.  I used to use Gmail, but switched to Inbox a while ago, not because it was more capable, but because it had less clutter and I am happy to see that Gmail is slowly being redesigned to fit this demand.  And don't worry, it still has folders (...