I used to struggle with emails. I’d read the same email multiple times, miss an important message, or respond too late.
Over the last 10 years, I have refined my own version of “inbox zero” — a methodical practice to clear out the entire inbox. I do this on most days with my work email, and once every couple weeks with my personal email (I use Gmail for both).
The biggest benefit of this practice is the clarity on what else needs be processed and what action items remain. This gives me peace of mind.
A central part of this practice is archive. When a message is archived, it is removed from the inbox but it remains in your email system. You can always search and access any archive messages later on. If you use Gmail, the archive shortcut is to press “e” on your keyboard (if the shortcut doesn’t work, you need to first keyboard shortcut in your Gmail settings).
For every message in my inbox, I do one of the following:
- Archive informational messages that require no action. This applies to 90% of my emails: alerts, announcements, receipts, confirmations, updates from subscribed email lists, and group emails.
- Reply to messages that require a response, such as event invitations and information requests. If a response requires less than 2 minutes, I respond right away. Archive immediately after response.
- Snooze messages where a delayed response makes sense. This applies to non-urgent email where pieces of information are still pending or you don’t want to think on it today. Snoozing temporarily removes the message from the inbox until a specified time in the future. An example is someone requests information that won’t be available until next week. In that case, I click on the snooze button (the “clock” icon in Gmail) and select next Monday. I can forget about this message until it emerges again on Monday when I can finally act on it.
- Unsubscribe from all ads and email lists that no longer provide any value. Use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of an email or the unsubscribe button at the top in Gmail. While unsubscribing is an extra step, this reduces hundreds of messages in the future.
- Set filters to automatically archive messages that you cannot subscribe. This works well bank notifications, payment confirmations, or other recurring messages that you want to retain in your email system for future reference. I filter based on a combination of sender name/email address (e.g. “Bank of America”) and/or certain subject lines (e.g. “Your payment is received”).
After the above process, a few important messages usually remain. These are messages that need further thinking and actions. What I need to do next is then clear.