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Nice. I've landed on a very similar regime for myself that I've been calling Near-zero Inbox. Originally it was Inbox-Zero-by-EOW, with the goal of having my

by jp57 2y ago

Nice. I've landed on a very similar regime for myself that I've been calling Near-zero Inbox. Originally it was Inbox-Zero-by-EOW, with the goal of having my inbox empty by the end of the workday on Friday, I always end up with one or two items that I need to leave for action on Monday. One technique that has gotten traction in my organization is the notion of "email bankruptcy" and "slack bankruptcy". I.e. if you find your email or slack debt getting too big to handle, you simply declare bankruptcy, archive everything (or everything older than a day or two), and start fresh. If you are very far behind, the downsides of doing this seem to be no worse than the alternatives. When I shifted from IC engineering work to management I found that I gradually became overwhelmed with email and other comms from a lot of people who now either wanted my opinion or felt I needed to be informed about a lot of things I previously wouldn't have been involved in. Oddly, but maybe not surprisingly, I found that there was positive correlation between the size of my email backlog and how crowded my calendar was, and that the causality seemed to operate in a feedback loop. If I had too many meetings it got harder to keep up with email, and if I didn't answer emails, I got invited to more meetings. Practicing near-zero inbox actually gave me more time, instead of less.

philipwhiuk 2y ago
Email bankruptcy is an annoying policy for people in a work environment and a cataclysmic policy in a personal environment. In a work environment people will be pissed off when they have to remind you a week later about a thing they email you on. In a personal environment you might miss an important payment and face some ugly consequence.
- xboxnolifes 2y ago
  If your already so far behind on email to declare bankruptcy, they're already a week late. This applies to both personal and business. And I cannot think of a personal scenario where missing a single email about payment would be a catastrophic issue. The only types of payments I deal with through email would just be resolved by receiving a follow up email.
mattw2121 2y ago
I've accidently done this (email bankruptcy) a couple of times recently. We use Outlook at work and the "Mark All as Read" button is right next to the "Run Rules Now" button. After a few minutes of shock and trying to remember what was what, it was very liberating!

by jp57 2y ago

philipwhiuk 2y ago

Email bankruptcy is an annoying policy for people in a work environment and a cataclysmic policy in a personal environment. In a work environment people will be pissed off when they have to remind you a week later about a thing they email you on. In a personal environment you might miss an important payment and face some ugly consequence.

xboxnolifes 2y ago
If your already so far behind on email to declare bankruptcy, they're already a week late. This applies to both personal and business. And I cannot think of a personal scenario where missing a single email about payment would be a catastrophic issue. The only types of payments I deal with through email would just be resolved by receiving a follow up email.

mattw2121 2y ago

I've accidently done this (email bankruptcy) a couple of times recently. We use Outlook at work and the "Mark All as Read" button is right next to the "Run Rules Now" button. After a few minutes of shock and trying to remember what was what, it was very liberating!