When I receive email I either discard it immediately, reply if it will only take a few moments, or if its important and will take some time to deal with I leave it there to be dealt with later. This almost never happens, my inbox grows, my family wonders why I never respond to my emails, my coworkers form the opinion that I’m unreliable, my wife sick of people emailing her when they want to get my attention.

Last week I came up with a great idea. I’m going to put my inbox on a diet. Every day my inbox must shrink by at least 25 items. I estimated that I should be able to get through the 700 or so emails in a month if I can keep up the pace.

Being a nerd, the first thing I did was make a spreadsheet. For each day it tracks my goal inbox size and how I’m doing. I have ups and downs but I’m making solid progress towards zero. There’s even a chart:

As I’m going I’m also building the habit of processing email as it arrives. I can’t afford not to. I know that I’ll fall off the wagon again and I’ll let my inbox get out of control, but I think I’ve got a strategy for recovering.