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jackSteps to email enlightenment.
0. Spend five minutes reading Inbox Zero, Getting Things Done, or other quick and dirty tips for dealing with masses of incoming email.
Status: SUCCESS.
1. If there is a large backlog in the inbox, purge it to another folder to deal with later.
If you DO have time to work through the backlog, or at least triage it for the most urgent stuff, you can do it when it's neatly categorised in another folder. If you DON'T then honestly, you were only going to do stuff you remembered to do anyway, and having the email somewhere where it doesn't clutter up incoming email is strictly better.
Status: SUCCESS.
2. Separate "email I haven't read yet" from "email I need to do something about".
This one change is dramatic. Many (though not all) people use their inbox as a todo list, and having 20 items they can't quite remember what they need to do clutters up their mind.
Have a separate folder for "incoming mail" and "mail I need to do something about". When mail comes into "incoming mail", read it and do one of:
(a) if it's knowledge you need to be aware of but not act on, read it and archive it, methodically if necessary, although honestly, if you use gmail, just hit "archive" and only tag it if you think you won't be able to search for it again
(b) it it's irrelevant, archive it or delete it
(c) if it requires a short reply ("sorry, I'm busy" or "I don't know and don't have time to find out, but try googling for [keyword]") send it now
(d) if it requires longer reply, put it in a folder for that.
(e) if it needs a longer reply, but honestly, you're never going to have time, send an explanation of that now and archive it. If you DO have time, you can do it later. But there's no point giving yourself false expectations.
The one rule I found was to ALWAYS put email to be acted on into the "need action" folder. Even if it's really urgent and important, put it into the action folder. If you leave it in the incoming mail so you "don't forget" you'll never do ANYTHING with the action folder. If EVERYTHING goes in the action folder, you HAVE to look in it.
Currently, I have three action folders: social, tasks, and job. And I fall behind sometimes when I'm busy or stressed, but the key mantra is that when I start to catch up it's easier to triage the backlog into replies and into those folders and into oblivion than to try to deal with it ad hoc.
Status: SUCCESS
3. Separate out "mail I want to reply to, but only after a bit"
This category is almost entirely personal correspondence, where I want to send a chatty email to a friend every month or so, but not "as soon as I receive one". It currently IS a bit of a big pit, but picking stuff off the to and replying to it as I feel like works more-or-less, and saves the less-regimented endless-chat emails from muddling up the "must act on" emails.
The other content of this is "check on a task after so long", eg. checking that a cheque has been cashes. This should probably be moved out of here and into a calender.
Status: ACCEPTABLE
4. Deal with tasks promptly,
Deal with tasks promptly, even if they're intimidating. If you're not going to be able to do them as well as you'd like, do what you can do now, at a minimum and improve as you can. Don't let a list of "things I'm never going to get round to" languish together with newly urgent stuff.
Unfortunately, this I'm not so good at. I've got better, but it's still sometimes very unreliable.
Status: PENDING
5. Further study
Further steps to enlightenment I have not yet trodden.
Conclusion
In some sense, I am comparatively successful at having an archetypal empty inbox. In another sense, I never will, because even if I'm organised, there will be some tasks pending for this day, week or month, which currently means in my "incoming email" even if not in my inbox, so I need to redefine success, because the system, even when it works smoothly, is never going to be in a state of "I don't need to deal with any emails/tasks".
0. Spend five minutes reading Inbox Zero, Getting Things Done, or other quick and dirty tips for dealing with masses of incoming email.
Status: SUCCESS.
1. If there is a large backlog in the inbox, purge it to another folder to deal with later.
If you DO have time to work through the backlog, or at least triage it for the most urgent stuff, you can do it when it's neatly categorised in another folder. If you DON'T then honestly, you were only going to do stuff you remembered to do anyway, and having the email somewhere where it doesn't clutter up incoming email is strictly better.
Status: SUCCESS.
2. Separate "email I haven't read yet" from "email I need to do something about".
This one change is dramatic. Many (though not all) people use their inbox as a todo list, and having 20 items they can't quite remember what they need to do clutters up their mind.
Have a separate folder for "incoming mail" and "mail I need to do something about". When mail comes into "incoming mail", read it and do one of:
(a) if it's knowledge you need to be aware of but not act on, read it and archive it, methodically if necessary, although honestly, if you use gmail, just hit "archive" and only tag it if you think you won't be able to search for it again
(b) it it's irrelevant, archive it or delete it
(c) if it requires a short reply ("sorry, I'm busy" or "I don't know and don't have time to find out, but try googling for [keyword]") send it now
(d) if it requires longer reply, put it in a folder for that.
(e) if it needs a longer reply, but honestly, you're never going to have time, send an explanation of that now and archive it. If you DO have time, you can do it later. But there's no point giving yourself false expectations.
The one rule I found was to ALWAYS put email to be acted on into the "need action" folder. Even if it's really urgent and important, put it into the action folder. If you leave it in the incoming mail so you "don't forget" you'll never do ANYTHING with the action folder. If EVERYTHING goes in the action folder, you HAVE to look in it.
Currently, I have three action folders: social, tasks, and job. And I fall behind sometimes when I'm busy or stressed, but the key mantra is that when I start to catch up it's easier to triage the backlog into replies and into those folders and into oblivion than to try to deal with it ad hoc.
Status: SUCCESS
3. Separate out "mail I want to reply to, but only after a bit"
This category is almost entirely personal correspondence, where I want to send a chatty email to a friend every month or so, but not "as soon as I receive one". It currently IS a bit of a big pit, but picking stuff off the to and replying to it as I feel like works more-or-less, and saves the less-regimented endless-chat emails from muddling up the "must act on" emails.
The other content of this is "check on a task after so long", eg. checking that a cheque has been cashes. This should probably be moved out of here and into a calender.
Status: ACCEPTABLE
4. Deal with tasks promptly,
Deal with tasks promptly, even if they're intimidating. If you're not going to be able to do them as well as you'd like, do what you can do now, at a minimum and improve as you can. Don't let a list of "things I'm never going to get round to" languish together with newly urgent stuff.
Unfortunately, this I'm not so good at. I've got better, but it's still sometimes very unreliable.
Status: PENDING
5. Further study
Further steps to enlightenment I have not yet trodden.
Conclusion
In some sense, I am comparatively successful at having an archetypal empty inbox. In another sense, I never will, because even if I'm organised, there will be some tasks pending for this day, week or month, which currently means in my "incoming email" even if not in my inbox, so I need to redefine success, because the system, even when it works smoothly, is never going to be in a state of "I don't need to deal with any emails/tasks".