Home
What's New
Why it Matters
How YOU Do It
Set Your Goals
Work and Family
Get Organized
Procrastination
Using Email
Better Meetings
The 80-20 Rule
Time for Teachers
Study Success
Tips & Techniques
Essential Tools
Plan Your Week
Messy Desk?
Do What Matters
Work Life Balance
Time at Work
About The Author
Contact Me
Site Map

[?] Subscribe To This Site

XML RSS
Add to Google
Add to My Yahoo!
Add to My MSN
Subscribe with Bloglines

Get an Empty Inbox - Now!

- 3 simple steps to a clear screen every single day

Is an empty inbox worth it? Yes, if it's easy enough to achieve.

Good news -- it is!

Having a ‘full’ inbox is more of a problem for you than your email provider. De-clutter your inbox and you’ll do the same for your mind.

Try this system -- it's easy and effective.

You’ll need:

  • A few minutes at the end of each day.
  • A block of a few minutes during the day.
  • A few minutes at the start of each day.

3 steps to an empty inbox

This idea comes from Mark Forster's excellent book 'Do It Tomorrow':
  1. Create two folders -- call them ‘backlog’ and action’.

  2. Isolate the backlog. All emails received prior to today go in the backlog folder.

  3. Now your inbox contains today’s incoming mail. At the end of the day, deal with it. You can:

    • Do it. Act if it’s short or urgent enough.
    • Delete it. If it’s irrelevant.
    • Defer it. Put it in the action folder for tomorrow.

You now have an empty inbox. Depending on your email provider, your screen should look something like this:

From now on, your inbox only contains today’s incoming mail. Check messages if you want, but leave them in your inbox. At the end of the day is the time to deal with them.

This is time efficient -- you deal with a finite number of emails, rather than reacting to those that grab you attention. Your emails don’t control you. You now control them.

The next time to check your emails is tomorrow morning. Why? Well, you need to check today’s messages periodically for anything that is urgent. Most stuff isn’t, though.

Tip: Write all your action emails on your daily task list

So, you now have three folders:

  • Inbox - today’s mail.
  • Backlog - everything before today.
  • Action - for tomorrow (if you’re at the end of the day).

Every day, you’ll need to manage your email folders.

An example...

Tuesday. Sarah has been away for a few days and her inbox has 103 messages.

What does she do?

  1. Sarah puts all messages received up to Monday evening in a backlog folder.
  2. She deals with Tuesday’s mail at the end of the day. Some things she deletes, others she responds to. The rest she puts in her action folder for tomorrow.

Wednesday. Sarah has three folders to manage today:

  1. The backlog folder – she chips away at this in the morning.
  2. Her action folder – Sarah aims to do something about all of these.
  3. Her inbox – as for Tuesday.

Sarah’s backlog folder will shrink until it can be removed. She will then only have two folders to manage: ‘inbox’ and ‘action’.

Maintaining an empty inbox

During the course of a typical work day, how many emails do you get? One day’s worth is all you should work on. Use this system -- you'll leave work daily with your inbox empty, your mind calm... and your head clear.


footer for empty inbox page