The first talk under the Getting Things Done section mentioned something that's been a big help to me, but that I had never really thought about until he mentio

The first talk under the Getting Things Done section mentioned something that's been a big help to me, but that I had never really thought about until he mentioned it. In a nutshell, it's that maintaining Inbox 0 forces you to make a decision on emails. Often the ones that will end up hanging around aren't anything that will require a lot of time to deal with or respond to, they're just the ones that require a decision that for whatever reason you don't want to make. Often though, you have all the information you need to make that decision, and putting it off doesn't help. Inbox 0 forces you to identify those situations, because you either need to deal with the email now, or explicitly decide when you will. Either way, it prevents you from just procrastinating on it because it's uncomfortable. Now that I think about it, I realize that has happened to me a ton since switching to Inbox 0, but I had never thought about it in those terms. In general, by the way, I strongly recommend adopting a GTD system and sticking to it. Personally I use Evernote, based loosely on www.thesecretweapon.org. It took me a significant effort over a period of weeks to get it set up and make it a habit, but I literally can not imagine being able to do the things I do today without it. (If anyone's interested in setting something like that up, feel free to get in touch via my profile.)