Update on my email taming

21 April 2008

Just a few days ago, I wrote a blog post about taming my email box. I vowed to use the trusted-trio method, which I read about on Lifehacker, to empty my email inbox. I said I’d try it out and report back.

I had about 6,000 messages, split between two inboxes, one for my business mail account, one for my personal mail account. I started going through the personal email account box, deleting as much as possible, filing messages I wanted to keep in the new “archive” folder, messages that required action (there were precious few of those, thank goodness) in the new “follow up” folder, and ones pertinent to things going on currently in the new “hold” folder.

Plowing through 6,000 emails started to feel a little overwhelming, so I implemented the inbox 0.5 method of dealing with 50 percent of the email backlog per day .

So here’s the update. After two days of effort, so far I’ve deleted or refiled 4,500 of my 6,000 emails (3,000 the first day, 1,500 the second day). My personal email inbox is empty. It’s a glorious thing. I’d never really understood why people thought that was so desirable. But, my goodness, I feel so much more in control.

I have 1,500 (1,455 to be precise) still to process in my business email box. I have a long plane ride ahead of me this week (more on that in a later post), so I’ll probably finish the job then.

So far I haven’t had much occasion to use the Archive folder (which is probably significant in and of itself), but thanks to Mac’s fabulous Spotlight quick-search feature, I know I’ll have no problem finding the emails I seek.

I’m looking forward to two empty inboxes and the empowering feeling I’ll gain from them (not to mention, more control over my email).

Tagged with: decluttering, email