A combination of various interpretations of the "zero inbox" strategy combined with the Get Things Done (GTD) process.
- Self-Discipline: Only view your inbox a few times a day - when you start work, shortly before you finish work and a couple of times in between.
- Mailfile organization: Have two "special" folders in your mail file: basket and soft-trash. Then have folders work (and maybe private) with various sub-folders for projects / topics.
- Process: Whenever you open your inbox, deal with all mails, starting at the top and not finishing until the inbox is zero. Depending on the amount of mail, go over the inbox iteratively until empty.
Possible actions per mail are:
- delete immediately to the trash of the mailbox (things you definitely do not need anymore)
- move into soft-trash folder (things you might need in the short future)
- move into basket folder (things you want to keep)
- move into a dedicated folder beneath either work or private folders (things you want to keep and are important enough)
Difference between basket and dedicated folders beneath work
Try to put everything into basket and just use the search feature. But maybe there are certain topics / projects / issues that you want to group together and be able to view in their entirety - so you put them in a appropriately named folder.
Another tip for the basket folder - depending on your mail application - is to use tags for enhanced search features.
What to do with the soft-trash folder
Delete mails from the soft-trash folder regularly, e.g. mails that are older than 3 months. This gives you a certain amount of backlog mails when you find out, that you need that mail that you deleted 2 days ago, b/c you thought you would never need it again...
Thanks for the quick thoughts. I wish I could have checked 2 or 3 o the answers; I like the Inbox Zero concept. – Joe Casadonte – 2009-10-31T01:18:57.163