Contrary to popular belief, Inbox Zero goes much deeper than just emptying your inbox of email every single day. It's more about how efficiently and promptly you handle each task your inbox brings you, rather than how long it takes for you to manage it.
Inbox Zero holds you accountable; this approach gets you out of your email inbox and back to work as quickly as possible, without dropping the ball on those that depend on you.
The Origin of Inbox Zero
Merlin Mann, inventor of Inbox Zero, lambasts our tendency to waste time checking our email mindlessly. If you're one to use your inbox as a to-do list or to keep track of appointments and reminders, the habit is probably costing you a lot of time and attention throughout your day.
In his own words: that's not a system—that's crazy. You're probably not making the most of either your time or your inbox by living in this way.
He mentions a very specific type of worker—a “knowledge worker”, one who adds value to information as a profession. The two most valuable things in a knowledge worker's life, according to Merlin, are their time and their attention.
He calls both of these things irreplaceable. If you consider yourself a knowledge worker, you might find that you can get a lot more done after developing a sense of mindfulness about how you spend them.
Breaking Down the Inbox Zero Approach
Inbox Zero sees email as exactly what it is: a tube, as Mr. Mann describes, that does nothing more than get information from point A to point B. Inbox Zero places a lot of emphasis on the content of the emails that you receive. By doing so, the user assumes a much more action-oriented approach to clearing his or her inbox.
When we're in the wrong state of mind, every notification feels vitally important. Separating the noise from the stuff that really needs your attention is part of the art of Inbox Zero.
When something hits your email, you should seek to address the sender and do what needs to get done as quickly as possible. If no action needs to be taken, the email should be filed promptly and organized in case you have to refer to it in the future. Out of sight, out of mind, but not out of reach if the need presents itself.
No matter what comes your way, you need to be prepared with a “forever home” for every type of email that you receive, even if that forever home happens to be your own to-do list. With a destination already in mind, you're much less likely to overwhelm yourself by trying to sort everything out on-the-fly.
There are five words that Merlin uses to describe everything that a person can do with an email:
- Delete (Or archive)
- Delegate
- Respond
- Defer
- Do
When you narrow things down in this way, you make things much simpler for yourself. There are only a finite number of outcomes; with fewer choices, we're able to work through the stack much more quickly than we would if we were hemming and hawing over every message individually.
Convert to Action, and Process to Zero
The most important rule of Inbox Zero is that you are not allowed to check your email without “processing”. What does this mean?
If you're one to open up Gmail, scroll idly, and close it immediately, you're probably not actually processing, but, rather, skimming. Skimming is bad; it's wasted energy. You retain little of what you read, gaining nothing for your time.
To process an email means to convert it to an actionable task or goal before you close it. Delete, delegate, respond, defer, or do—one of these words will apply. Before clicking over to something else, make the decision and make your move.
The Power of Habit: What Is an Email Dash?
Mr. Mann asserts that all anybody needs to take care of a problem is the discipline necessary to adhere to a prescriptively appropriate system; the perfect system means nothing if you do not abide by its rules and strategies.
In this vein, he encourages us to reinforce good habits by repeating them—namely, in this case, urging us to check our email inboxes less so that time can be invested elsewhere. The better we get at this, the more time we're racking up on the back-end for more important things.
One tip he shares includes avoiding the habit of leaving your inbox up and open, so you can focus on more important things. Instead of staring at your Gmail, Merlin suggests that you schedule email dashes throughout your day. How?
- Check your email exactly once per hour.
- For ten straight minutes, process your inbox to zero using the action verbs above.
- After ten minutes have elapsed, wrap it up and get back to work.
This routine can be tailored to your own work and individual needs—you may need twenty minutes to process, or perhaps you only need to check your email once every three hours. In any case, this simple process will likely have you thinking much more intently about how to make the most of your day.
Inbox Zero and a More Mindful Day at Work
Merlin walks us through a helpful visualization exercise, courtesy of Joel Spolsky: your bandwidth is a box. Your responsibilities, everything that you need to do in order to keep up with the demands of the world, your job, your family, and your friends? These things are like a bunch of building blocks.
"Every time you put a crap block into your box, it means a really cool block gets left behind. As much as we sometimes feel like we're beholden to bosses or teams, we, ourselves, are ultimately the traffic cop for this kind of stuff. You want to stop leaving yourself with a bunch of stupid blocks to remove from your box. It's better to make sure that they never get in there in the first place."
In economics, this concept is called “opportunity cost”—when your box is full, which blocks would you swap out for different ones if you could? As a human being, where do you devote the majority of your time and attention? Which parts of your life rob you? Which parts are absolutely starving?