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30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

waxman.me

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Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#31

Post by fishtoaster »

pieterhg wrote: post #28
fishtoaster wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine it depends heavily on your email load. I get plenty of email, but the majority of it is automated, so with my gmail fitlers, I have only 2-3 per day that I actually need to read. OP, on the other hand, is the founder of Grouper, and presumably gets dozens or hundreds of emails from real people requesting his time, input, or other resources. As such, there's significantly more effort involved in determ…

Minor nitpick but the page shows he's the founder of Grouper, not Groupon.

Whoops, thanks. Updated. I was thinking of Grouper when I typed this, anyway.

Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#32

Post by refurb »

Beliavsky wrote: post #3

I wonder if Inbox Zero is a worthwhile goal. My inbox is effectively one of my to-do lists. Since I don't cross off everything on my to-do list each day, my inbox usually has a few dozen messages. I have found that when I move an email to a "check later" folder, I never do so.

I do the exact same thing. If the email is something I need to address, it stays in the inbox. If I don't need it, it's archived.

My work email usually hovers around 5-10 emails in the inbox.

Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#33

Post by RHSeeger »

rjzzleep wrote: post #26

edit: for those thinking that unsubscribe is a good idea. it's not. changing your email to a junkmail email before unsubscribing from services you don't need anymore is a better approach for mutt users this is really easy to accomplish even with many mail accounts. create a macro file eg. ~/.mutt/macros: # have to be sourced on folder hooks macro index,pager ,a " =$my_account_name/archive " macro index,pager ,p " =$m…

If it's a newsletter they are sending you legitimately (ie, you signed up for it) then you should not be marking it as spam; just use the unsubscribe link.

Marking emails as spam can have a negative effect on the company and, if they didn't do anything wrong, you shouldn't be hitting them with that.

Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#35

Post by rwallace »

trevoragilbert wrote: post #27

My problem with solutions like this is that they never seem to fit any other people's methods of working. Saying things like "Only check e-mail twice per day" is not going to work for 95% of the people that are reading this (rough guess). If I only checked email twice per day, I'd just end the day with 500 emails that need responding to all in one bunch. On top of that, many of them would no longer be timely, disrupt…

If you get five hundred e-mails per day and many of them need replies on a timescale shorter than a few hours, presumably replying to e-mail is (a large part of how you do) your job. Which is fine; that means if you spend a few hours a day replying to e-mail, you're spending a few hours a day doing your job, which is as it should be. Articles like this one are addressed to people for whom e-mail is a distraction from their jobs.

Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#36

Post by mmatants »

wvenable wrote: post #6

I'm doing the exact opposite as Michael; but I can't say which of us has the better system. I probably get a lot fewer emails. I've given up on inbox zero -- I now use inbox infinity. Everything stays my inbox unless auto-categorized (mailing lists, specific clients, etc). When I look through my emails, I flag any email I'm not dealing with right now. Otherwise I reply, leave it, or delete it. I archive anything old…

An email in your inbox is two things: an imperative to act (reply, call, do something based on the email), and a piece of searchable supporting information for that action - or anything else, really.

So what you describe is pretty close already to inbox zero. The last step is to get even more aggressive about archiving things non-to-dos and trusting that archive search box. A truly empty inbox is more important than it may seem - new items are seen by themselves, standalone, instead of as part of existing glut of shit to take care of. And it's good to have the discipline to either commit to an imperative task or just say "no" - either explicitly or via non-response.

Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#37

Post by GBKS »

wvenable wrote: post #6

I'm doing the exact opposite as Michael; but I can't say which of us has the better system. I probably get a lot fewer emails. I've given up on inbox zero -- I now use inbox infinity. Everything stays my inbox unless auto-categorized (mailing lists, specific clients, etc). When I look through my emails, I flag any email I'm not dealing with right now. Otherwise I reply, leave it, or delete it. I archive anything old…

Same here. The idea of Inbox Zero is like a physical mailbox that requires you to empty it. The idea of Inbox infinity is like a Twitter/Facebook stream, where things go by and you pick out the ones to take action on.

Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#38

Post by dingaling »

rwallace wrote: post #35
trevoragilbert wrote: post #27

My problem with solutions like this is that they never seem to fit any other people's methods of working. Saying things like "Only check e-mail twice per day" is not going to work for 95% of the people that are reading this (rough guess). If I only checked email twice per day, I'd just end the day with 500 emails that need responding to all in one bunch. On top of that, many of them would no longer be timely, disrupt…

If you get five hundred e-mails per day and many of them need replies on a timescale shorter than a few hours, presumably replying to e-mail is (a large part of how you do) your job. Which is fine; that means if you spend a few hours a day replying to e-mail, you're spending a few hours a day doing your job, which is as it should be. Articles like this one are addressed to people for whom e-mail is a distraction from…

> that means if you spend a few hours a day replying to e-mail, you're spending a few hours a day doing your job

Sadly not. In the corporate world, if an activity doesn't have a timesheet task code associated, it doesn't exist.

Clearing e-mails doesn't have a task code, so effeectively it's a few hours unbillable on top of your working hours each day.

Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#39

Post by zck »

graeme wrote: post #11
lincolnq wrote: post #10

Another recommendation I would make (either to get to zero or get yourself to stay there) is to pre-commit to your goal using Beeminder ( http://www.beeminder.com ), which will make you pay money if you don't hit a target each day. (Don't worry, it only counts "read" emails so you don't have to worry about emails coming in and causing you to go off track)

Is there a good "getting started with beeminder" guide? I tried Beeminder, and had no idea how to use it.

Last month, they published a New User's Guide: http://blog.beeminder.com/newbees/ .

Re: 30 Days of Inbox Zero: How I Did it

#40

Post by rwallace »

dingaling wrote: post #38
rwallace wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get five hundred e-mails per day and many of them need replies on a timescale shorter than a few hours, presumably replying to e-mail is (a large part of how you do) your job. Which is fine; that means if you spend a few hours a day replying to e-mail, you're spending a few hours a day doing your job, which is as it should be. Articles like this one are addressed to people for whom e-mail is a distraction from…

> that means if you spend a few hours a day replying to e-mail, you're spending a few hours a day doing your job Sadly not. In the corporate world, if an activity doesn't have a timesheet task code associated, it doesn't exist. Clearing e-mails doesn't have a task code, so effeectively it's a few hours unbillable on top of your working hours each day.

> Sadly not. In the corporate world, if an activity doesn't have a timesheet task code associated, it doesn't exist.

Then don't do it. If that stops other people getting their jobs done, that's not your problem. Trying to fix dysfunctional organization problems with "I will work harder" doesn't get you appreciated, it gets you a ticket to the glue factory. (Reference from Animal Farm by George Orwell.)

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