I’ve been known for a long time to be an inbox clean freak. Sometime in the last year I finally got around to reading Getting Things Done by David Allen (colloquially known as GTD). That pushed me into a new level of inbox cleanliness to what you might call Inbox Zero. The link there is a Google Tech Talk by Merlin Mann, creator of the 43 folders web site. If you’re interested in living with an empty inbox, I can highly recommend this video as an inspiration and lots of practical advice in getting there.
The presentation itself is great but the questions and his answers afterward are equally illuminating, so make sure to watch the whole thing:
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Also mentioned in the video is a web site called sentenc.es that espouses a philosophy of treating email like text messaging and only replying to emails in small set number of sentences, with a short note at the end referring to the site:
Q: Why is this email 5 sentences or less?
You can find more from creator Mike Davidson.
Personally, I’m not willing to go quite this far, but I appreciate the sentiment. It certainly resonates well with the Miller Principle.
Nuke your inbox! Trust me, it feels good.