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Three Years of Logging My Inbox Count

warkmilson.com

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Re: Three Years of Logging My Inbox Count

#2

Post by aout »

Working in email right now I can tell that this data is canonical. The email age graph is probably the most interesting.

As I interpret it, most people keep some very old mails for a period of time, mostly because they use it often. This might be because they contain useful information (like a password...) or because they represent a task. If it is the latest it becomes a perpetual problem because it adds some kind of noise from this feed of info you get everyday.

In our business we tried to separate these by either saving the useful part and discarding the rest (highlight and save) or by putting the thread somewhere else (in an Important category).

For all the rest it appears it is just temporary info, updates, FYIs, etc... So we basically decided to reverse our email usage. Instead of focusing on the inbox we left it untouched but saved everything that mattered in other panels. We still have work to do to improve the usage but it seems promising. You can check it at getnimb.ly if you'd like

Re: Three Years of Logging My Inbox Count

#3

Post by cyphunk »

Perhaps a recipe for disaster but I consider ignoring email count and avoiding sorting as a form of zen. The result is you use your fallible mind to prioritize and remember important mental threads. And if that fails often you may find it better to improve the mind (such as taking a vacation, sleeping better) rather than finding more tools to replace it.

Also, consider that if you are focused on quickness and efficiency that there will be times that the communication this produces, while gratifying for you, is disappointingly hollow for others. And it probably has an additional effect on actual character, similar to how bar tenders form of conversation in personal life may over time start match the chitchat form from work.

Re: Three Years of Logging My Inbox Count

#6

Post by mynegation »

cyphunk wrote: post #3

Perhaps a recipe for disaster but I consider ignoring email count and avoiding sorting as a form of zen. The result is you use your fallible mind to prioritize and remember important mental threads. And if that fails often you may find it better to improve the mind (such as taking a vacation, sleeping better) rather than finding more tools to replace it. Also, consider that if you are focused on quickness and efficie…

That is what I do as well. I leave mails in the inbox and flag those that need action or follow-up, and unflag them when I am done. I rely on search to look for an e-mail, There is a rule set up that moves unflagged threads older than X to archive. What counts is not the size of inbox, but unread and flagged count.

This works especially well for mobile clients where it is pretty inconvenient to sort e-mail.

Re: Three Years of Logging My Inbox Count

#7

Post by peteretep »

ghubbard wrote: post #4

I'm interested in reading the solutions promised in part 2.

The easiest is: stop using your Inbox as a todo list, and use a dedicated Todo list system instead (like GTD). Any email that can be answered straight away is, anything else is archived and becomes an item in your Todo ledger.

Re: Three Years of Logging My Inbox Count

#8

Post by webrender »

I feel like Google Inbox and the concept of snoozing emails helps a lot with this. A lot of emails that lie around in one's inbox are there because other people are blocking the task; snoozing the email allows for an "Inbox Zero" state while pushing off priorities until their proper due date, when they can be archived.
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