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.

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.

Calgon!

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”.

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

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

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.

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!

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!

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!

I just leave everything in my inbox. the read stuff is archive, the unread is to process. If it needs a followup, tag it “followup”. If it’s waiting for something, tag it “waiting”. When I need to review my followup or waiting items, I just look in the search folders. If I want to be fancy, I can tag them “done” after I have followed up, and then I can see in weekly review what I have accomplished over the last week.

So I’ve been chuckling at all the “inbox zero” posts that have come across all the productivity blogs over the last couple years, because I basically have the exact same system, except my Inbox is always 4000 – 5000 messages. The system should be called “categorize your email” or something. But that’s just common sense.

I know many people who say to me “I can’t do that! I get too many emails a day!” Sometimes, the number of emails seems to make people thing that they are more important, or something…

Recently I read something on Tim Ferriss’ blog (http://tinyurl.com/yoss2w) where he tells people to hire an assistant to answer emails if you get too many each day. He also suggests standard responses to certain types of emails. Just because your email has your name on it, that doesn’t mean you can’t delegate dealing with it to someone else.

Cheers,
Alex

I keep an empty in-box at home (I am self employed)though. While I do have folders, I keep anything that takes more than two minutes in a folder I call, “9 p.m.-To Read, To Do file.” I usually process those at the end of the day, when I have more free time.

I keep two other folders though, that are very helpful. When retailers send me a promotion code that I may want to use, I place it in a file called, “On-line retailer promotions”. I also place any on-line order here-instead of printing the page with my order-I just click, send link by e-mail and store it there. The other one is for “Subscription Confirmations” which contain any software keys I may need.

Good post though. I do love the simplicity of the three folders.