Inbox zero…

May 23, 2008

Finally started going through my dreaded inbox, nothing worse than reading unopened email saying “I really need prayer for…” and “Can you help me decide if i should…” from over a year ago.

My inbox currently sits at 32,767. I’ve deleted thousands already. I gave up on clearing my inbox along time ago, but I have a respond-asap folder that was about 400 long, and I’ve gotten down to 16 at the moment.

Filtering through old email, i found one from DJ (that was starred and about six-months old) on the concept of inbox-zero. I’m convinced this time around I’m going to have a sustainable system that works.

One of the keys is responding to quick notes immediately, a principle from getting-things-done which I’ve never managed to fully adopt (it’s those next-step action items i dislike).

I like the idea of processing or responding to quick emails and getting them out of the way, but sometimes I feel like it speeds up the conversation more than I might want it to. The quicker I respond, the quicker people get back, and the qiucker I need to respond to again. That of course, must be better than completely ignoring things until it’s way too late.

Below is a video of an inbox-zero presentation at Google if you need inspiration.

Posted in Ramblings, tech