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.
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