Comments on: Achieving “inbox zero”

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By: Achieving “inbox zero” | The Design Blog Database

Achieving “inbox zero” | The Design Blog Database — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:53:52 +0000

[...] Last night I tweeted that I had achieved and maintained “inbox zero” nirvana. I’m sure there are countless posts on the topic, but thought I’d briefly share how I made sense of the communication barrage that I was once drowning in. (more…) [...]

By: Val Kildea

Val Kildea — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:53:52 +0000

I like the idea of concentrating on one 'sector' of tasks per day. David Seah seems to apply the whole principle to his working life with his Printable CEO series (http://tinyurl.com/62aq6u) – currently still filed under Good Intentions on my list of things to do!

Thanks for another interesting post Eric.

By: Alon

Alon — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:19:37 +0000

Nice article. I have been practicing zero inbox for a while now with a varying degree of success.

I use "Things" on the Mac and iPhone to keep things sorted and as a main to-do list per David Alan GTD book and system.

I read a tip somewhere about adding a signature to your email that says something like "I check my email at 10am, 2pm and 4pm. If this is an urgent request please call, etc.", with your choice of time intervals, of course. I haven't tried this yet but it might cut off the pressure to check/respond to emails all the time.

Thanks,

Alon

By: Susan Seeley Roe (ssr11)

Susan Seeley Roe (ssr11) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:38:28 +0000

Great post! I forwarded it on to my husband because he was freaking out this week from email overload. I wasn't quite sure what to say to him because I have the same problem at times. Thanks!

By: Scott Mackenzie

Scott Mackenzie — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:36:58 +0000

Hey Karj. Yep inbox Zero is utopia. Thanks for the advice. Spot on.

Here's a little overview of a folder structure I've used for a few years that helps achieve peace of mind.

> Personal (emails from wife mainly but also things I deem private to me)
> Friends (Usually tom foolery emails from my mates)
> Projects (sub folder for every project, these are active projects)
> Projects Archive (completed projects)
> Reference (things I want to keep, refer to. important emails, passwords etc)
> Trashable (Emails that I wont be needing, temp emails. I prune this regularly, but usually leave at least 1 month of emails there, just in case ;)

Trashable is my most used folder, because to be honest a lot of email these days is a waste. I have a short cut key setup so I can prune these out fast.

With all this in mind, the best advice I ever took was to not open your inbox every 5 mins or open it just because you get an email. Also turn off the annoying alert for everytime a new email comes in.

Instead, try checking emails every hr or so. And dedicate 10mins to filtering sorting and replying.

I work my best when I focus, and having outlook bugging me as I'm thinking about a project is the worst.

By: David Ronnie

David Ronnie — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:48:17 +0000

For those of you that have heard of GTD, there's a couple of solid apps that you might be interested in. One is an actual GTD firefox add-on that turns your G-Mail inbox into a task manager. For those of you that prefer to keep a task list that doesn't demand you logging online to manage, I'd recommend iGTD. There's a professional version that you can pay for, but I find the free version works just fine for my needs.

By: Eric Karjaluoto

Eric Karjaluoto — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:34:28 +0000

Ultimately I write a response to one person, and then delete the name and reuse the same message in future correspondence.

For example, we don't have any intentions of hiring at smashLAB, so I don't want people to waste their time applying. As such, I have a general email explaining that we have no need for staff, but that I'm happy to pass their name along if I hear of someone who's looking for someone with their skill set.

I also have emails that go out to PR people who send me crap. In these I ask for them to remove me from their lists, and perhaps read the "Idiots" post here at ideasonideas.

Again, this is just a way to let people know that I've received their message and what's going on. I hate it when people don't respond to emails I send. As such I think it's only fair that I practice what I preach.

By: Sean Stiller

Sean Stiller — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:57:30 +0000

As always, great post!

The 'template e-mail' idea you came up with is particularly interesting, I hadn't considered this before. We use templates for most other aspects of client/business management (proposals, etc.), so it seems like a logical extension. If you're able to, perhaps elaborate a little on all the uses you have for these templates, I'd like to begin using a similar system myself.

By: Chris Ritke

Chris Ritke — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:10:37 +0000

I absolutely agree. I've managed to keep my inbox to zero for several months now and must say that I couldn't be happier with the results. But I don't understand how it works unless you have something like Gmail's search. Because archiving an email only works well if you can trust that you'll be able to find it again - I think search is the best solution - I'm very happy that I gave up folders a long time ago. I really like your idea of task gr0ups. I'm actually working on a thingy-style contact/task manager (mainly because I'm very much in need of one myself!) and have been grappling with that problem for a while now. I wonder if tagging may be a way of solving this.