Inbox Zero

I came across Inbox Zero from Merlin Mann’s website – 43 Folders about a year ago and it has certainly made a difference in the amount of email clutter I have.

A few of the key changes I made after reading the Inbox Zero article and watching Merlin Mann’s video presentation are as follows (in my own words):

Learning to delete: Learn to delete emails that you don’t need right away. We have this funny trait of wanting to hang on to emails forever. I try to lean on the side of being very conservative with what I keep.

Act immediately: This is probably the number one obstacle we need to overcome in order to achieve Inbox Zero. I used to read emails and then let them sit there for a while before doing what I needed to. But now, if I receive an email, I try to ‘process it’ right away. If its something I can do right now rather quickly, then I do so, allowing me to delete the email and get rid of it.

One Archive Folder: Aside from my business emails, I took Merlin’s advice and now only use one ‘Archive’ email folder. I realized I don’t need some huge, complex hierarchy system of folders to archive all my emails. Most email searches will easily find the email I’m looking for so now I just store them all in one folder.

Merlin Mann gives a lot of other great advice, which is absolutely worth your time reading or watching so be sure to check it out.

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