(Part 1: Email Overload: Clear your inbox in a few easy steps)
(Part 2: Email Overload: How are we doing so far?)
Success! 
I have been trying to clear my inbox manually for the last couple of weeks in order to get a better feel for the need of email productivity and email overload tools. I also wanted to get my Outlook file down from a gigantic 15 G to something more manageable for me and digestible by Outlook. The stats so far:
- Outlook pst file: 15 G -> 6 G -> 5.8 G
- Inbox items: 6,743 -> 124 -> 0 (!!!)
In my last post, I was a little disappointed because I felt that I had capitulated by moving the vast majority of my old emails still in my inbox (well over 6,000 of them, all of them read of course, but not obviously handled) to a folder named 2010. That left me with a fresh start for 2011, and 124 messages in my inbox. I decided to attempt a final summit run and tackled the 124 messages applying very strictly the rules outlined in Part 1 of this series on Email Overload. Well, it worked! (and wasn’t that hard) Once you get into the habit of deleting FYIs, your delete trigger finger gets well trained. Important emails you store in another folder for further reference, TODO emails you move to a TODO folder (unless you can act on them within 2 minutes). It took me another 30 minutes, and I finally achieved Inbox Zero.
I now have this vast empty space staring back at me when I open my inbox. Actually, my thoughtful colleagues, customers, information providers and such are very kind to fill the void very quickly! It isn’t long before my inbox accumulates messages, although not that many because I have already created a bunch of filters for most automated emails, newsletters and such. A couple of times per day (ok, I admit it, sometimes more often than that…) I check my inbox and apply the rules from Part 1 with no pressure or stress at all. Within minutes I am again at Inbox Zero.
As you can see from the stats above, I have been less successful at reducing the size of my Outlook pst file, for obvious reasons, as I moved over 6,000 emails to another folder. I will spend some time going through the older ones and handling them, again more as an exercise to understand my mental algorithm for deciding on whether an email should stay or be deleted. More on that in future posts.
As for Inbox Zero, there was the high of achieving it and the satisfaction of maintaining it. I feel a little less stressed about forgetting an important email in my Inbox, but I am struggling with finding additional value for the exercise. Again, more on this in future posts, as I live with Inbox Zero for a longer period.
Let me know how it’s going if you have been trying any of these techniques. I’m already getting feedback from our employees that are trying it out.
Mike,
You are missing an important piece of the puzzle here: If the e-mail data that you put away automatically in pre-classified folders is suddenly required down the road, you will need something to retrieve it lightning fast. Imagine missing an e-mail from your kid’s teacher because it got grabbed by one of the rules. If you use Xobni, you could simply type the name of this person in the Xobni search bar and retrieve all the e-mails, attachments and links exchanged with this particular contact. You will even be able to do some small talk about the latest “tweets” of your kid’s teacher while you speed read the notes that he sent you for the supposed field trip.
Enjoy
FR
@Francois
The method I have been described only automatically sorts less important emails, like Newsletters or automated ones that come from tools like Jira, Confluence, build systems, etc.
In this method, an email from my son’s teacher, if deemed important for future use, would manually (i.e. by specific action by me) go from my Inbox to a directory of my choosing.
I am on a Xobni trial (thanks to you!) and I definitely like the fact that I can see a consolidated view of all communications from a particular use, as well as the excellent attachment handling.