It’s hard to believe that not too long ago, email was something I just didn’t get. It was about as important to me as the “junk drawer” in our kitchen where we kept the twisty ties and the large collection of used batteries that don’t work anymore. It was where I wasted time deleting forwards and viagra ads. If someone really needed me… they could call.

Today things are much different. Email is one of my lifelines. When I know something important is coming in, I find myself obsessively hovering over the “check mail” button. click. click. click. My email client always open and I try my best to respond to any that require action in about 5 minutes.

The transition between then and now was a bumpy road. My disregard for the importance of email just didn’t fit with customers’ plans as I started to get more freelance work. I figured, if they sent a message by email, it must not be very important. And so, it was not uncommon for me to wait days, or even weeks to respond. The more I realized that this was not the case, the more I was also sucked into this lifestyle of depending on email as a major part of communication. But as my inbox grew, things became very disorganized. I couldn’t remember if there was an email I needed to respond to, and couldn’t keep track of the ones I had responded to.

It was around the end of last year when I first heard about “Inbox Zero”. Merlin Mann of 43 Folders had given a talk at Google on better ways to manage your email. I knew my current system (of doing nothing and letting things collect in the inbox) wasn’t working, so without watching Merlin’s talk, I just assumed what I needed to do by the title.

I knew that Merlin was really big on Getting Things Done. Anyone that isn’t familiar with GTD, it’s basically all about developing a trusted system of keeping your mental inbox clear. You take all of the “stuff” and put it somewhere else, whether it be on paper or in some sort of todo application on your computer, therefore freeing up the worry and stress in your mind. So, my first assumption about Inbox Zero was correct. All of the emails in my inbox represented tasks, and if they were completed, then they did not need to be there, cluttering up my other emails.

It was the next assumption I made about Inbox Zero that really killed me. I figured getting the emails out of the inbox meant taking every single email and either deleting it or figuring out a folder system to keep everything neatly organized in. Well, 6,000 emails and 4-5 hours later, my inbox was empty. It felt great, but it didn’t last long. Every time I had a few new emails, I had to stop and think: What folder should I put this in? It became very time consuming, and if I didn’t already have a folder that the current email fit in, I had to stop what I was doing and create one. It really took my attention from what I needed to do and was not very agile. I was constantly trying to come up with a better schema of folders so that I could file everything properly. After coming up with a better way, it meant going through all of my emails again and re-organizing. I think I lasted all but one week on this system and then got tired.

A couple months later, my inbox was back up to 700 emails or so that I’d kept. Occasionally I put things in folders but for the most part I was just let it keep filling up. My organization problems began to creep up again, so I decided to give Inbox Zero another try. This time I actually watched Merlin’s talk to see if there was anything I was missing.

Sure enough, there was! He described almost exactly what I was doing with the folder system, and talked about the problems associated with that. You really only need one folder. I’ve labeled mine Archive, and put everything in it once it’s “complete”. Search features are sophisticated enough to not need multiple folders. I can search who an email was from, who it was to, what’s in the subject or even search by message content. There hasn’t been an email that I haven’t been able to find by just searching. I’ve been using this system of keeping up with everything for a while. Out of sight, out of mind is what really helps me feel good about what I’m not doing, just because I’ll always be able to come back to my emails and pick right up where I left off.

If you want to check out Merlin’s talk on Inbox Zero you can check it out on google video.

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