Inbox zero

A full inbox looks like a to-do list but is really other people's priorities mixed with noise. Important messages sink among newsletters, and every glance at the list costs a few seconds of attention and a small decision that was not made.

Constant checking also breaks up focused work far more than the emails themselves. A person who processes email in set blocks keeps the rest of the day for deep work. Replies to customers and prospects arrive sooner, and fewer follow-ups are lost.

• Touch each message once. Reply if it takes about two minutes. Otherwise turn it into a dated task and archive the email.
• Process email in two or three fixed blocks a day, not continuously.
• Use rules and filters to move newsletters, receipts and notifications out of sight, so only messages needing a human decision arrive.
• Agree rough response times: same day for customers, a week for newsletters or low-priority requests.
• Close the inbox between blocks and switch off pop-up notifications.
• Run a weekly clean-up of the task list the inbox feeds.

Inbox zero was named by the productivity writer Merlin Mann in the mid-2000s. The point is easy to misread. Zero does not mean no email. It means no message sits in the inbox undecided. Each one is acted on, delegated, deferred to a task list, filed or deleted.

Mann's version describes five choices for every message: delete or archive it, delegate it, respond to it, defer it, or do it. The inbox becomes a sorting station, not a memory.

• Moving everything to a "read later" folder, which is just a second inbox.
• Aiming for zero emails and spending the day on email.