The joy of Inbox Zero

11 March 2021

I’ve had an on-again-off-again relationship with Inbox Zero. I’ve blogged in the past about the glory of Inbox Zero and how I’ve achieved it. Yet I invariably fall of the wagon. That usually happens when I’m stressed or busy or otherwise unfocused. But when I am in a headspace to be decisive, I can achieve the elusive empty inbox at the end of the day.

That happened almost a week ago, on March 5. For the past year, probably, I had a daily goal of Inbox 20. In other words, I could count myself successful if I got my inbox down to 20 at the end of the day. (I track all this stuff in my awesome Trello Daily Task Management board). There were about eight messages that just kept hanging around at the bottom of those 20. A couple were newsletters that I meant to look at and was afraid I’d forget about if I archived the message. A few were emails I was waiting to make a decision about so I could respond to. For whatever reason, I just wasn’t taking action on them and those emails languished in my inbox.

On March 5, I set the goal of getting my inbox down to zero. It wasn’t hard. Once I got rid of the detritus (like the many newsletters I receive and look at daily), I just had to make some decisions. And add a few things to my task board so I could archive the related message.

In the intervening six days, I have achieved Inbox Zero each and every day. It’s been a joy to empty my box by making decisions immediately, replying as necessary and deleting, archiving or filing immediately after I’ve read something that doesn’t require a reply. I am now using my task management board, rather than my inbox, to stay on top of my tasks. It feels great!

It’s hard to describe the satisfaction of maintaining a lean inbox. It makes me feel more in control. It stops me from delaying decisions. It keeps me on top of my correspondence. And my tasks are together where they belong, on my task-management board, not split between Trello and my inbox.

Inbox Zero may feel elusive. But if you’re inspired to go for it, check out this blog post that describes in detail how I emptied my inbox in 20 minutes at the end of 2019. Or take a look at the more detailed post linked in the first paragraph of this post.

It feels so great to be on top of my inbox. I’m now deleting messages as soon as I read them, trying to empty my inbox many times a day. If that sounds appealing, I encourage you to give it a try. Any effort you make at reducing your email backlog is beneficial!

Tagged with: email, habits, productivity