

Open question: What's the point of inbox zero? - ZeroMinx
http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/01/open-question-inbox-zero.html

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retroafroman
I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum of the author-I don't understand those
who don't practice inbox zero. My personal view is that if a certain volume of
mail starts to become overwhelming, or if I can easily leave it and not suffer
any bad effects, I should unsubscribe. I don't act on every single email I get
in, and if I'm going to put it off for now but know I need to remember to do
it, I will read it and then 'star' it. Occasionally, I will mark the top email
as unread because I know I will see it again that way.

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middlegeek
I practice "unread zero". I leave emails in my inbox in case I need them
later. The search function works well. If they are not marked "unread", I
don't pay attention to them thus my brain does not see it as clutter.

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tricky
i have 19,452 messages in my inbox right now. I'm mildly OCD but my brain
doesn't register this as clutter, either.

I think it's because of search. I know I can find something when I need it
because everything is in one place, on one server, regularly backed up to 3
different locations.

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JacobAldridge
My inbox (work - personal is full of 'like to read one day stuff') represents
how cluttered my mind is. If it's above 30 messages, then I'm not in control
of work. I don't aim for zero on a regular basis, but like it to be below 10.

Currently at 82 items ... and I'm dual procrastinating on HN and BBC iPlayer.
Hmmm...

~~~
elithrar
I hear you. I used to receive > 100 emails a day — some automated, but most
thanks to Cc and mailing lists. I'd either read them in batches, or file them
for 'later'. As long as that 'later' list was under ~10, I was in control.

For my personal mailbox, keeping it under 5 is usually enough. I typically
keep cell phone/web server/etc bills in there until they're paid, and emails
about photo-shoots in there until the work is completed.

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mynegation
The point of inbox zero is a feeling of getting things done and getting
positive reinforcement form it, as well as an information organizing method:
what's in your inbox is (part of) your ToDo list. Like joshklein I do not
bother with moving messages out of inbox - for me they are just a stream.
However I mark with a star (in gmail), flag (in Outlook) or mark as unread all
the messages that require follow-up action I did not do immediately. And
sometimes I do a wholesale archiving, and only in short moments after that my
inbox is zero or near that.

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joshklein
It all depends on your mental model. I, for instance, don't archive my
messages; once they are marked as read in the inbox, I'm done with them. The
point of inbox zero is, I believe, just to separate the place you organize
your overall actions from the place you find out about new actions. When you
combine the two, as a busy person, you just hold too much information in your
head that could easily be taken care of by a system you can abide by.

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lacker
When I started doing inbox zero, I actually spent much, much less time on
email. An email you leave in your inbox costs you mental energy every time you
see it. An email you deal with immediately costs you only once.

Also learning to use the gmail shortcuts J, K, <enter>, X, Y (or E), C,
shift-I, *-A, and G-I was very helpful. You can type ? from the gmail home
screen to see the shortcuts. Try it out!

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cyrus_
1\. Its not that hard to get to zero if you know the keyboard shortcuts to
Gmail: use 'J' and 'K' to move between messages and 'Y' to archive. If you're
in list view, 'X' highlights the message so 'XY' will archive things very very
quickly.

2\. Liberal use of autoarchive for high volume mailing lists that I don't need
to be continuously updated on. I'll clear those folders out every once in a
while.

3\. Boomerang is a great tool that lets you temporarily archive a message. It
will come back to the Inbox when you tell it to, so you can put stuff you
don't have to act on for a while away and stay near zero with it:

<http://www.boomeranggmail.com/>

(I am not affiliated with Boomerang.)

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iuguy
I try to keep my main (work) inbox down to zero unread messages or as close to
as possible. It has anything that's important, that I need to reply to with
some urgency. All of the cruft (mailing lists, people I don't explicitly deal
with regularly, people I've never received messages from before) goes
elsewhere.

I only check email several times a day, at the start of the day I prioritise
and schedule tasks based on emails, then later on I respond in batch, then
check again in the afternoon and respond in batch before going home. It
frustrates some people, but given that I actually get stuff done, the
alternative is far worse.

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qntm
My inbox is every email conversation that isn't archived. It is a list of
items awaiting action from me. (Just because an email has been read doesn't
mean it doesn't require action from me.) If it no longer requires action from
me, then I archive it. Thus the inbox is a portion of my global "to do" list
and represents, in a very real way, the amount of Stuff that I need to worry
about at any given time.

I had no idea that "do all of the Stuff that you need to do" had such a fancy
name, or was worth writing a book around.

Aiming for zero is fine. Expecting to achieve it is impractical, of course. We
all have Stuff to do.

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ZeroMinx
Apart from some mailing list, which bypasses the inbox, I always want to get
unread messages read. If it's junk I'll delete, if it's something I need to
action later, I'll star it (gmail). I just don't want to see "Unread
messages"..

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dpatru
Email for me is something to be processed. If it doesn't _need_ my attention
and response, I try to filter it so it doesn't reach my inbox.

In contrast, my facebook stream is a diverse collection of stuff from people I
care about that may interest me and which I peruse every once in a while. HN
is kind of in the same category, except that HN content tends to be longer and
more impersonal.

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njharman
People are different.

Is that really so hard to fathom? You may not get IB0, you may not be capable
of "getting" IB0. It's ok.

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maigret
A couple points...

\- An inbox zero usually loads faster

\- An empty inbox allows to concentrate on real work items rather than
searching reading material in the inbox

\- It's the electronic equivalent of a clean desk. It makes a clean impression
when other people look on it.

\- It's needed when you use your inbox as a todo list.

~~~
mauriciob
> \- It's the electronic equivalent of a clean desk. It makes a clean
> impression when other people look on it.

I don't think they are equivalent. Your desk is just there for people to see
it, but email is much more personal. I wouldn't want people messing on my
e-mail, as I don't want them messing in my drawers . There is nothing to hide,
but they are not an open book.

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timepilot
For those of you in favor of a zero inbox, I have a couple of follow-up
questions.

(1) are you archiving? (2) if not, how do you search for old emails?

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missinlnk
Yep. I've taken the Google model to Outlook. I have just one folder called
archive. It comes down to these steps:

\- If I haven't looked at it yet, it's unread in the inbox \- If I've read it
but still have something to do, it's marked read but still in the inbox \- If
I'm done with all of the actions associated with it, it goes into the archive
folder

On top of that, I use search folders to quickly look at emails from specific
people or groups. I prefer that to real folders as sometimes emails need to
exist in multiple folders, plus those folders will catch anything that's in
both the archive and inbox folders.

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mike-cardwell
Privacy. Data protection. Why store data on the Internet that you don't need
to?

~~~
maigret
If that is your issue, then a better way is to have your own server, encrypt
your emails and ask your contacts to do also. Once your mails are hosted once
on a server, you can't know where you data goes and how long it stays there.
One minute is more than enough to archive an email on a warehouse.

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zrgiu
The answer is pretty obvious to me. If I have 0 unread messages, when I login
into my client I know I don't have any new messages without having to actually
look at the message list.

~~~
timepilot
I have 10,000+ emails in my inbox and I get the same benefit from them all
being marked read. I also can search for back emails which you cannot (unless
you have archived them).

Edit: Occurred to me you may have meant the same thing (if this is the case,
pls ignore my post). I'm pretty sure the OP refers to empty inboxes (all
messages deleted, not just marked read).

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drivebyacct2
My inbox represents things I need to get done. If it's an email from a Prof,
it's a project I need to start and get checkmark-scheduled on my calendar. If
it's from a (potential) employer, it stays until I finish the next step in the
interview process. I just recently finished up some long lasted loose ends
that I'm very happy to have been done with. I just recently got back to 0
unread, and only 4 are still requiring enough attention to continuing living
in my Inbox.

