Daniel's Magic Decoder Ring

[1] In an effort to counteract information overload, I've started qualifying much of my written communication with a certain taxonomy.  Since I won't be able to explain it to everyone, I'm writing this blog, which I'll send people to when they ask "what are the numbers all about?"  I've even made a Magic Decoder Ring below. Well, technically it's more of a rectangle than a ring, but you get the idea.

I'm putting numbers in front of much of what I write in our internal company communications.  I usually don't do it publicly, although I might start to, if it works well.  For example, if I were writing this blog internally, I'd give it a [1], since it's of low priority.  That doesn't mean it's not valuable, it just means you won't need the information to do your job effectively -- think of a [1] as an "FYI, a [2] of "I need a response when you can" and a [3] as "urgent -- I need an answer right now".  We'll see how well this works.  I've been using it for a few days and it feels good so far from my perspective.  Feel free to leave your comments below telling me how you perceive it as a recipient.

Right-click here, then choose "save as" to download the image below.