81–90 of 133 posts
Introduce artificial limits, e.g. 10 emails in inbox, 10 online accounts, 100 saved items, etc. And if you want to add new item, you'll have to cleanup some old ones to make space, either by archiving them to some sort of "deep storage", or just deleting. Very likely, that such limits might help you to find even better ways to organize everything, instead of constantly fighting them.
This is digital version of hoarding! I struggle with it too - I think a better tagging system would solve it for me but I’ve accepted I’ll never read all the books in my wishlist or even some I bought years ago and yet to read them.
There are browser launchers that can help with this strategy, though IME most don't route from within one browser to another. So I started my own [1].
For non-browsing stuff there are a lot of ways to organize things. Generally I like to try to isolate apps on my devices for work or personal since I have little overlap. On mobile some crossover may be unavoidable, though on Android one can make different Android profiles.
You’ll be fine.
I declared Instapaper bankruptcy last month when I moved to Pocket. I used to add about 10 links a day to Instapaper thinking that one day I would come around to reading them all. Lol, never going to happen. I moved to Pocket because my Kobo Elipsa has integration with it. But because of this, my filter to adding to Pocket is now "Will I read this link on my Elipsa". If not, why add to it in the first place. So after…
Fortunately for you, you'll discover soon enough that Pocket is utterly useless for accessing/reading the contents you've saved. It's Mozilla's Giant Cloud Recycle Bin.
Most of humanity goes thru school and college relying on the fact that the multi-year programs are going be worth it - and it is. Schools and colleges have well developed curriculums (with inbuilt choice and variety also).
If we want to justify the time spent on forums like HN and internet in general, as being a source of new information and knowledge - but there isn't nearly enough effort to be make the internet an organized tool for learning. Else it really is just a time sink.
Edit - And as others have said, it seems inverted to approach it in-terms of "inbox zero". Think in terms of projects or tasks to be done - long, medium and short term.
For the TODO list, I can share one frame of mind that I use. I have a "now", "soon", and "later" section in my TODO list. "Now" grows and shrinks, but never gets out of control. Things sometimes move from "now" to "soon" or "later." I am constantly working off of this list. The "soon" section varies. Often, things get pulled into "now", when they become time sensitive. Some things stick around long enough and it beco…
I have two piles: "Time to do something about", and "Time has done something about". Amazing how many things kind of fade out in time.
You need to step away from the internet for a while. Go outside. Talk to people in person. Realize the real world is far more interesting than the digital one and just forget about all that digital nonsense.
I suppose for people whose job is replying to emails, I can see how a tidy inbox would be advantageous. But for the rest of us, why?