Anyone who has lived with me or worked closely with me knows that I have a lot of trouble staying organized and a lot of trouble keeping on top of my email. Typically my inbox grows to a couple of thousand messages and then I "archive" it and start again. This happens every couple of years.
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.