Inbox infinity

One of the most noxious inventions popularised in the productivity space in recent years is the notion of Inbox Zero. With this technique, you are supposed to clean your email inbox down to the magic zero counter and, ideally, keep it that way. Every new email landing in your inbox is a distraction that should be micromanaged.

I love email, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful tools on the Internet. However, Inbox Zero is the most anxious-provoking, dopamine-driven, health-damaging way of dealing with email.

Not every email has to be or should be archived, deleted, or moved away. Why have this burden? Loosen it up, let it flow. Automate the rest, and respond to what’s best.

Don’t want to read yet another newsletter that you don’t even remember subscribing to? Unsubscribe once – and you’re done. Find those newsletters interesting, or do you want to keep track of your receipts? Set up rules to automatically mark those emails as read and move them to designated folders. Do it once, and your inbox will become a much more pleasant place even without you making the manual effort on every single email.

What do you do with the rest of your emails? Workgroup conversations, notifications, and all sorts of emails that don’t require you to take action? In most cases, you read it – and you’re done. It’s as simple as that, without the extra micromanagement.

What about the other types of emails when you do need to respond? Well, you respond now or flag it to reply later, set it aside for batch processing, whatever works for you. But unlike the Inbox Zero technique which requires you to have obligations on every single email, here you only take action when it matters.