Get your inbox to zero

April 27, 2009

Get your inbox to zero

Many words have been written on how much of a plague email has become to professionals. I wanted to concentrate on repeating one powerful solution I have heard and read about now in a few locations. In Bit Literacy by Mark Hurst, the writer exhorts readers to zero out their email inboxes daily. He, correctly I believe, sees a world of professionals using their inbox as a type of to-do list or task management system.

The problem is that email programs are meant for email communication, not for task management. Furthermore, many individuals soon find themselves maintaining multiple to-do lists – in their inbox, in their task management program, on a pad of paper, etc. The work of prioritizing tasks between these multiple sources becomes increasingly complex and tasks may be lost in the shuffle.

Under Hurst’s system, emails should be read, responded to if they can be answered within a short time (~5 mins) and removed from the inbox. If there is key information to refer to later, they can be saved in a folder. If the email represents a to-do, it should be transferred to your t0-do list. Hurst offers a task management program that integrates with email at goodtodo.com (which I have to admit that I have not used yet). Outlook’s task management will also work, but doesn’t offer the same integration as Goodtodo.

The ultimate goal is to end each workday with the email inbox at zero. Beyond the productivity gains and increased accuracy from better prioritization and fewer missed tasks, there is an emotional relief that comes with getting your inbox to zero which cannot be quantified easily.

Many find the idea of this task daunting as they may have many thousand emails in their inbox. There is no trick method to start this system – you simply have to spend the time deleting and filing those emails. As you do this you will realize how much the oldest email have become obsolete, but you may also come across some items you missed that are now relevant to current work and must be revisited. Regardless, the process becomes faster and faster as you get into it, so I’d recommend devoting at least an hour at a time to this task, as boring as it sounds.

For more information on Mark Hust’s company visit Goodexperience.com. And I heartily recommend Bit Literacy as a good read for anyone suffering from email overload.

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