Gmail Inbox Zero

For some people, Inbox Zero (the state in which you don't have ANY email) is as mystical as achieving financial independence or the ideal weight. I have achieved neither of the latter, but have one or two things to say about inboxes.

My mission today: Telling you that empty inboxes are possible, no matter how many emails you get. Empty inboxes are necessary. And once you get there, you will never go back.

No new emails. No read emails. Just blank space - let us dive in.

Once you go there, there's no turning back.

Why your inbox needs to be emptied. Every 1-2 days.

Your inbox is a one-time input that helps you decide what to do next.

Your job is to engage with the world around you - with your customers, your colleagues, your boss. Many things compete for your attention, so you must decide what you do with your time - and then engage. But if you have incomplete information, deciding what to engage with is less effective.

Two insights result from that:

Engaging is not the same thing as reading or answering email. Which is why we will talk of "processing email" going forth.
You need to have read it all before you decide what to do next. Reading it more than once or searching for the email wastes your time.

Your inbox belongs to other people

It is tempting to use your inbox as your todo list. But it really is a list of what other people would like you to do. It does not care about your priorities. Your inbox competes with your todo list. It also competes with your year-end goals.

That is why your inbox needs to be emptied every day. How else would you decide in an informed way what your priorities are? And how else would you have the tranquility to know you're working on the appropriate thing?

Common misconceptions

Read is not processed

Priding myself on "no unread email in my inbox" is one adjective too many. My inbox still looks daunting, I need to search through intimidating amounts of emails to see what is relevant. I need to take care to not accidentally mark something as "read" or "unread". This is not freedom, this is walking on (a heap of) glass.

Processing is not responding

The №1 reason why we fail to empty our inbox is not because it is too much (be honest - FOMO makes us read everything) but because we allow ourselves to be dragged into engaging with the emails. When you process your email, process it (more on that below). Responding comes later, when you have a complete picture and decide now is a good time to reply to that email.

Fancy categorizing is not processing

I value Gmail's options and how it adapts to every style of working. But some features hurt users - multiple inboxes and fancy stars are examples of features that give you a false sense of control. You don't need to see a maximum amount of emails - you need to see one. Then the next. And the next. You need one inbox, and that needs to be empty every 1-2 days.

If you have too much going on: Here is how to revert a noisy, attention-grabbing inbox to the, pure Gmail experience.

How to get to zero

Preparation

Make sure you know how archiving works and that you are free of any notion that the archive is a bad place.
Make sure you know how to copy/paste individual email URLs for later reference. When you add an email to your list, you include a full URL like this in your todo program's note section: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/FFNDWMbBcmsPJfsQkZtSjMtgNZrxTlCN
Create a digital todo list which may be as simple as a table in Sheets. If you have one already, even better. You need at least two lists: One with things you need to do. Another with things you are waiting for.

It is time to attack your inbox

Read the first email until you know what you will have to do.
If no action is required, archive the email. Next!
If action is required, use the 2 minute rule: It takes approximately 2 minutes to create a todo on your list, so it is more efficient to react/answer/forward the email quickly. Remember, the goal is to keep churning through emails. Archive. Next!
If the action (even when the action is replying) takes longer: Either delegate it or put it on your list.
1. Delegating means: Forward to Albus from HR, specifying what needs to be done by when, and making a note on your list that you are waiting for Albus to do the task. Archive. Next!
2. Doing it yourself means: putting it on your todo list. Create an entry "Reply to Tom re: project Orchard" and paste the email's address in. That's all you need for now. Continue with the next mail - Archive. Next!

This will become second nature to you soon.

When you are done, you are done! Now you can look at your todo list and decide which email to answer. To get back to an email you have saved, just overwrite Gmail's complete URL with the email's URL you saved, it will jump right back to your URL. and answer it. Or decide to work on something else - only this time with the peace of mind that you are working on the most important thing and will get to individual emails when it suits you.

If you have hundreds or thousands of emails in your inbox (read or unread), you may want to set aside a quiet time over the weekend to handle them once and for all. It is liberating and this exercise gets easier when you do it the next time (which is tomorrow). You may get to a point where you can confidently archive all remaining emails (say more than 1-2 months old) at once. Looking at those hundreds and thousands of read emails is usually more stressful than dealing once and for all with them.

Configurations for power users

Enable conversation view. Families have been torn apart over this feature in the past, but Conversation view always comes out on top. Here is a tutorial that will make you love it, guaranteed. Conversation view reduces the amount of emails in your inbox and makes sure you have all context when dealing with a new email.

Settings > General > Conversation view > On

Enable auto-advance. You will be processing email from now on, not picking that one interesting email and returning to the inbox. You will stay focused, you will be a batch processing machine. When you are done with one email, you will process the next and so on.

Settings > General > Auto-advance > Go to the previous (older) conversation

Filter emails. Create filters to auto-archive emails that you will not read (newsletters, automated emails from systems etc.).

Enable shortcuts. Shortcuts are your friends to be even faster.

I do recommend a minimalist inbox. Writing email is just as serious as writing a document, and we pride ourselves on a clutter-free document editor, too.

Once you got to the inbox zero, do not fall into the trap of constantly cleaning it. It is ok to only check Gmail 2-3 times a day, or as often as you need it.

It is high time emails became less overwhelming - and nothing says "I am the captain of my ship" more than an empty inbox. Try it and you will want to get back to the satisfaction of a clean slate.

And if you have come across something called "Getting Things Done (GTD)" in the past, you might recognize the thoughts and language in this post. In case you like this way of thinking, I encourage you to learn more about it - a post is coming soon!

If you try it, please let me know how it went. I love hearing those stories and perhaps there can be a post about people who made it. Thank you for reading!

#gmailPublished 2019-10-17 by Holger Matthies.Republished 2021-03-23 by Holger Matthies.Modified 2021-03-23-16 by Holger Matthies.Written listening to Worakls - Nocturne

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