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Why do we need/want inbox zero? Isn’t that a false promise of modern life? Inbox zero isn’t possible or even necessary

by edf13 5y ago

ssss11 5y ago
Yeah I’ve given up on inbox zero. Inbox is my filing cabinet and that just works.
dmd 5y ago
I fail to hit zero fewer than three times a month. It's absolutely possible.
jwngr 5y ago
"Inbox Zero" is 100% not the goal with Shortwave and you won't see it in our marketing. Not to be too cheeky, but "Inbox Organized" is the goal. We want to help you treat your inbox like the to-do list that it is, not necessarily smash every email that enters your inbox. Read more about our workflow in our docs. [1] [1] https://www.shortwave.com/docs/guides/101/ https://www.shortwave.com/docs/guides/101/
brimble 5y ago
I've found it's both achievable and a worthwhile way to operate if and only if nearly all of your emails come from humans, and not very many of them. As soon as transactional emails and marketing mailer scripts start to take over, or long-running CC noise, it's hopeless and fighting it's not worth the time. Forget about it and rely on search. Maybe auto-categorize some senders you want to break through the noise, but anything past that isn't a good use of time (though it may be satisfying, which is enough justification if you're into that kind of thing) Failing that, skimming the inbox for important messages you missed then hitting archive-all at the end of the day can do it, but it's sort-of cheating and I'm not sure how valuable it is. Periodically auto-archiving anything older than X hours can be nice, but won't (often) get you to Inbox Zero.
- BeetleB 5y ago
  > As soon as transactional emails and marketing mailer scripts start to take over, or long-running CC noise, it's hopeless and fighting it's not worth the time. Forget about it and rely on search. The alternative, which works very well for me, is to have a whitelist and only allow that to hit your inbox. Then allow humans to get on to your whitelist: http://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2018/Sep/solving-my-email-problem/ http://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2018/Sep/solving-my-email-proble... It's trivial to filter out the noise, because by default it filters everything out. You do a tiny amount of work to whitelist the humans. Inbox Zero definitely works with that setup.

Why do we need/want inbox zero? Isn’t that a false promise of modern life? Inbox zero isn’t possible or even necessary

by edf13 5y ago

Why do we need/want inbox zero? Isn’t that a false promise of modern life? Inbox zero isn’t possible or even necessary

ssss11 5y ago

Yeah I’ve given up on inbox zero. Inbox is my filing cabinet and that just works.

dmd 5y ago

I fail to hit zero fewer than three times a month. It's absolutely possible.

jwngr 5y ago

"Inbox Zero" is 100% not the goal with Shortwave and you won't see it in our marketing. Not to be too cheeky, but "Inbox Organized" is the goal. We want to help you treat your inbox like the to-do list that it is, not necessarily smash every email that enters your inbox. Read more about our workflow in our docs. [1] [1] https://www.shortwave.com/docs/guides/101/ https://www.shortwave.com/docs/guides/101/

brimble 5y ago

I've found it's both achievable and a worthwhile way to operate if and only if nearly all of your emails come from humans, and not very many of them. As soon as transactional emails and marketing mailer scripts start to take over, or long-running CC noise, it's hopeless and fighting it's not worth the time. Forget about it and rely on search. Maybe auto-categorize some senders you want to break through the noise, but anything past that isn't a good use of time (though it may be satisfying, which is enough justification if you're into that kind of thing) Failing that, skimming the inbox for important messages you missed then hitting archive-all at the end of the day can do it, but it's sort-of cheating and I'm not sure how valuable it is. Periodically auto-archiving anything older than X hours can be nice, but won't (often) get you to Inbox Zero.

BeetleB 5y ago
> As soon as transactional emails and marketing mailer scripts start to take over, or long-running CC noise, it's hopeless and fighting it's not worth the time. Forget about it and rely on search. The alternative, which works very well for me, is to have a whitelist and only allow that to hit your inbox. Then allow humans to get on to your whitelist: http://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2018/Sep/solving-my-email-problem/ http://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2018/Sep/solving-my-email-proble... It's trivial to filter out the noise, because by default it filters everything out. You do a tiny amount of work to whitelist the humans. Inbox Zero definitely works with that setup.