Comments on: Simple strategies to clear email clutter — From Gina Trapani of Lifehacker

By: Shandos

Shandos — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:19:05 +0000

I just wrote a shorter blog post related to this at my blog – I agree with keeping the inbox as empty as possible.

By: jenny

jenny — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:43:40 +0000

i’m laughing at myself, as i just copied the link to this post and emailed it to myself.

By: dean kakridas

dean kakridas — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:01:22 +0000

It’s important to qualify which email client or webmail you are using before commenting because different rules apply wether it’s Outlook or Gmail.

If it’s Outlook, like I use at work, the ‘zero inbox’ process is surely the best option.

Not only is it the best option for organizational or stress-free purposes but it’s important for performance reasons.

With 5000-10,000 emails in Outlook, everything slows down to a crawl: startup, search, shutdown- stability in general. When I emptied my inbox, Outlook started performing like an entirely different email app- one that was usable and more stable.

By: Angelique van Engelen

Angelique van Engelen — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:20:18 +0000

I am a convert, but not totally yet. Wonder if anybody would be able to help me with this issue; I have two computers, both of which have outlook. I haven’t synchronized these accounts because I am planning on shutting down one computer -it’s an old Win98 pc. During the past week I have worked on this old computer and I received important emails on this machine. I tried to retrieve these emails on my new computer but as I had already opened them on the old one there’s no way that they’re sent to me automatically.
Is there an easy way in which to solve this (other than complicated synchronizing) or should I simply just forward my mail to myself? I had Incredimail installed once and seem to remember this program forwards backlogs automatically.
regards,
Clixy123

By: Matt Gillooly

Matt Gillooly — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:15:02 +0000

I’m a recent convert, but so far it looks like this system really works. Thanks!

By: Marsha Egan

Marsha Egan — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:14:26 +0000

I too agree that the empty inbox is the stress free way to go!

One thing that has been assumed, but perhaps not said, in some of these posts is that going into your inbox with the idea of SORTING rather than WORKING the email is the key.

We can’t treat our incoming email like dishes in a sink, more like our postal/paper mail that we SORT when we take it outa the mail box.

And yes, because of all the great sorting tools, we can definitely have fewer folders.

By: andi

andi — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:14:25 +0000

yes, but what to do when Outlook/Entourage randomly starts duplicating your carefully sorted messages, and bringing deleted messages back from the dead?

Calgon!

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:31:20 +0000

As others have noted, the constant purging of your “inbox” is counterproductive and I would suggest leads to far greater stress as you constantly try to shoot down everything that comes your way.

We’ve forgotten that the “inbox” on a computer is only a metaphor. You can’t “handle” pixels and bytes. For example, I have over 9000 read and unread emails in my web mail account and it cause me no stress because I can only see the top screen-50 messages or so at any one time. I only view the current window while I’m working. The rest is out of sight, out of mind.

Computers have Random Access unlike your real world inbox, desktop or filing cabinet. With relatively unlimited storage online there is no need to spend time filing things-let your own personal simpleton file clerk, the computer do that!

Like some of others above, I just tag actionable things as I go along and don’t even bother to open things that appear to be irrelevant at the moment. I can always search later by the sender or a key word in the project if I feel I’ve missed something.

The commitment to a filing or “handling” process as well adds a significant margin of human error-something that would be a greater stress I would think, especially to the many in these forums who appear to be burdened by a perfectionistic mindset.

The empty inbox seems to me a workaholic or control freak’s illusion of productivity: an obsessive ritualistic cleansing.

The real standard for performance for me is summed up in the question: how many actionable projects have I moved forward or completed today? Not the state of my pretend “inbox”.

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:22:45 +0000

My opinion differs from Hick Ninja. I can’t imagine looking at 4000-5000 messages in my in-box and not being stressed out or distracted. I prefer to keep the in-box relatively empty and use the Task list for tracking what needs to be done. I keep a lot of email for reference, but prefer to keep it in a Reference folder.

By: Tara

Tara — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:59:52 +0000

Can’t say that I agree about the waste of time part, Jon. I follow the OHIO rule with email. I only handle it once — read, file, done. It doesn’t take more than a second to drag it to a folder.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:48:11 +0000

I think that sorting and categorizing email is a complete waste of time. I use a similar system to Hick Ninja. With a combination of tags, follow-up reminders and read vs. unread you can accurately track and manage the infow of emails. Further, for the people that “can’t seem to find anything” for crying out loud, install a desktop search client: Windows Desktop Search, Google Desktop, X1, Copernic, etc., etc., etc.

Three key things you need to understand and use in Outlook:

1) Follow-up Flags
2) Categories
3) (Most Importantly) Search Folders

By: Amir - Easy way to declutter your inbox

Amir - Easy way to declutter your inbox — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:10:38 +0000

There is an easy way to organize your inbox!

Disclaimer: I helped in the development of the product!

The biggest problem with cleaning your inbox, is that we either don’t know how to do it (to many emails) or we don’t have the time to look for the right folder or remember where did I file this communication?. A product called MoveIT from bluelightit.com helps the process of filing emails. It’s easy, intuitive and users report savings of over an hour a day. works with Outlook only (outlook add-on). have a look at the website at http://www.bluelightit.com/MoveIT. not the greatest looking site but worth to try it.

By: Beth

Beth — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:49:43 +0000

I just spent an hour or so organizing my Outlook. I am pretty good with creating folders – one folder for each client I work on, one for personal emails, one for charity events I volunteer with, and one for order confirmations. It is just a matter of setting up rules to file everything after I receive or send emails.

So now – I have ZERO messages in my INBOX, ZERO in my SENT items (either filed or discarded)and have reviewed my folders and discarded emails I have no need for. Next is tackling my archived files.

I too have one client with close to 10,000 emails in her box. She can never find a THING! Of course, this is the same person that has piles upon piles of books, papers and God knows what else in her office. And she believes in (and paid money for a consultant) in Feng Sui!

I say OY VEY!

By: Tara

Tara — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:03:29 +0000

Alex, you’re so right about the belief that there’s a direct proportion of importance and number of emails received per day. I can’t count the number of times I hear, “I didn’t check my email for one day and there were 500 messages!”

An overflowing inbox indicates a few possible clutter problems; too many subscriptions that you can’t keep up with, non-functioning spam protection, Poor filing system, etc. I worked for one person who had nearly 20,000 items in his inbox. He couldn’t find a thing!

By: Michele

Michele — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:11:55 +0000

I confess that until today I didn’t understand how gmail labels work.

I’ve shaved my Inbox from 160+ messages to 35. What’s left in the Inbox is stuff I’ll need to act upon in the next few days — so it’s more of a to-do list that I need to keep in the open rather than squirreling away into cubbyholes. The most important messages are immediately in view, no scrolling and no clicking to older messages.

Yay!