Matt Gemmell on managing out-of-control email:
To effectively manage our email, we have to accept a few basic truths. They’re hard truths, but that only makes them even more valuable. Here they are:
- What’s important to other people is not (as) important to you.
- You are inherently lazy and egocentric.
- Ruthlessness is a hell of a time-saver.
With those facts, we have the basis of a truly workable email-management system. The simple rules I use are as follows, and are based on categorising email by when (or if) I’ll reply to it.
I started a similar task at the start of 2012. I tried to go through some 10,000+ emails to gauge importance, reply, etc. - that was crazy. I finally relented and archived everything. To my surprise, the world did not end.
Now, I’ve been following my version of Matt’s guidelines for awhile and have successfully kept Inbox Zero for six months. Email is a lot less stressful now and I am not looking back. If you feel overwhelmed by your inbox, you are doing it wrong. Free yourself.