E-mail fu

When email piles up in my inbox, it is usually because I am avoiding taking action. A message with an old timestamp is usually related to a task I don’t want to do or to a question I’m not sure how to answer. For me, a messy inbox signals procrastination, and the more I avoid email the more it piles up.

Lately, I have been working to clear my inbox every night. This doesn’t mean I’ve necessarily answered every message, but I have at least archived or sorted what has been sent to me. I have folders labeled “To do” and “Respond to.” This saves me time because I am no longer reading and re-reading and reading again the messages in my inbox and telling myself “I need to reply to that” and “Still haven’t replied to that” and “I really need to do that thing that person is asking about.” It’s less repetitive. My mind gets out of a recursive loop.

Clearing my inbox also makes me act on messages I’m avoiding, so I get more [...]

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