I take 5 minutes each hour or two to check my emails and respond as fast as possible to respond-able items (and archiving them right away), move actionable item

I take 5 minutes each hour or two to check my emails and respond as fast as possible to respond-able items (and archiving them right away), move actionable items to my to-do list (again archiving them right away, though sometimes keeping info on my to-do app), and trash all unrequested/notreallyinterested emails ASAP. Aside, my inbox always has from 0 to 10 items in it, which I think this is more then manageable. Items may include threaded conversation though, so it could very well be 9 items and 30 items in one slot. I keep some emails in my inbox because I haven't been able to close the particular conversation. If we're discussing something that I can't take action on I just leave it there until I wrap the communication. My emails are 90% of the time two or three sentences long. If I can answer with a 'yes' or a 'no' I will. Most people I correspond with also know that I have a very short attention span with email content so they also keep it as short as possible. I tend to just not respond amazingly long emails. tl;dr Just go over the list as fast as you can deleting as much as possible first, archiving as much as possible second and then taking direct action on the emails themselves. And keep it short (which I see the irony of since this comment is magnitudes too long). PD: Oh and I disagree with the phone. Generally it's a way to extend conversations and wastes time and productivity.