How to achieve "Inbox Zero"

Back in February I had written about the hazards of inbox inefficiency and offered a simple 1-2-3 formula for dealing with e-mail ("Wha-aaat? You have FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY-SEVEN unread E-MAILS in your INBOX!").

Now, thanks to Esther Dyson's recent column on the Project Syndicate website, I know there is a better way to achieve "Inbox Zero". Dyson, a former journalist and Wall Street technology analyst turned investor, has devoted her piece to the many advantages of Mailstrom, a little piece of software that helps you manage your e-mail:

Mailstrom does an excellent job not only of categorizing my mail, but also of helping me to get rid of it by applying my own intelligence — and willpower. It helps me do things that I cannot do for myself when I’m trying to sift through my mail. It finds all the messages from a certain person, and then lets me handle them in a batch — delete, move, or even answer....

Mailstrom does this in a sleek way, replete with numbers — selecting, counting, and sorting messages by date, subject, sender, social network, size, and so forth, and showing charts of the statistics. Mailstrom shows you how many messages of each particular type you have; it ranks the frequency of subject lines; and it lets you see how many messages you have received and how many you have handled each day.

Read Esther Dyson's column in its entirety here to learn more about Mailstrom. And then visit the Mailstrom website to sign up for free: "Achieve Inbox Zero".

• Here you can check out my simple 1-2-3 formula for dealing with e-mail.

• UPDATE (February 19, 2013): Mint has published a piece today on apps that help you to achieve Inbox Zero, whether you check your e-mails on your phone or on your PC. Check it out here.

• UPDATE (June 5, 2013): Gopal Sathe has written a very useful article in Mint today about how to be the boss of your e-mail inbox. Read it here.
  

"Wha-aaat? You have FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY-SEVEN unread E-MAILS in your INBOX!"

That was my cry of astonishment — and anguish — yesterday when one of my students came into my cabin with her laptop to show me her inbox and to explain why she had not seen an important e-mail I had sent her three weeks ago.

Once I had taken a look at the staggering number of unread e-mails, she did not have to offer any explanation.

I know many people like her. The philosophy at work here seems to be, "We'll get to it later." But before these people know it, another dozen or more e-mails have arrived, and that all-important e-mail has been pushed to the next "page".

Clearly, this is a philosophy that does not work.

How many of you have tons of unread e-mails? Is it really that difficult to maintain a clean inbox?

I have two primary e-mail addresses. Here's a screenshot of my Gmail inbox:

Now here's a screenshot of my Commits Mail inbox:

I have a simple 1-2-3 formula for dealing with e-mail:

1. After you log in and check out your inbox, take quick decisions on "deleting", "marking as spam", and "opening", in that order.

2. Reply ASAP to the e-mails remaining in the inbox.

3. After you reply to each e-mail, take a quick decision on whether to delete it or move it into a folder for future reference. (I have upwards of 40 folders, termed "labels" by Gmail, for each of my e-mail addresses. It may seem like a lot, but believe me, this system is a very efficient one, especially since, additionally, the search function allows me to zero in on ANY e-mail in these folders.)

Want to use this 1-2-3 formula over the weekend to organise your inbox? Be my guest. And send me a screenshot afterwards.

• ALSO READ: How to achieve "Inbox Zero".

• By the way, I prefer my desktop to be uncluttered, too. See image below: