I first read about the “touch once” concept many years ago. The basic idea is that any item crossing your path that requires your attention in some way — an email that needs a response, a document that needs reviewing, a client’s request for a meeting, an old-fashioned letter in the mail — you process it both immediately and in such a way that you only “touch” it once. And the basic method for doing this is the “Five Ds” methodology from the prior post.
For example, say you check your email twice a day and typically have a few dozen new emails. To employ the “touch once” procedure, you go through all new emails, read each one (or at least its subject/sender information) and either immediately discard/delete it (if possible) or, if it requires some response or other action, you immediately respond and/or take the required action (if doing so takes < 2 minutes); otherwise you delegate/divide/defer you plan for responding/acting in accordance with the Five Ds protocol.
At the end, all new emails will have been processed (“touched once”) and either deleted or filed away by the end of the processing. (This actual example — checking email only periodically, “batch processing” all new emails, and then finishing with no emails in your inbox — is specifically known as the “zero inbox” strategy.) The overarching idea is that you process items once, rather than just leaving them on your desk, in your inbox, or percolating in the back of your mind based on the (inefficient) idea that you’ll “deal” with them later.
A mundane example of this process is sorting laundry. As explained elsewhere, I have a very basic wardrobe (black socks, t-shirts, and boxer briefs), which I wash about every two weeks. When I put away my clean clothes, I just dump everything into a pile, pull items out one by one, and sort them into three piles (socks, t-shirts, boxer briefs). I then put each pile in its respective drawer. In the process, I’ve handled every item of clothing, as well as each pile of clothing, but “touched” each of them only once.
One Idea 