Branestawm;87158 said:
It's probably me that's missing something. When I click on my Inbox, I see a whole load of stuff with Labels on. I don't want them there. I want to see emptiness. How do I go about doing this? R
Do NOT do as the original poster in this thread implies, and "label and archive" your email. That's not processing email down to zero, that's hiding it with labels in other folders.
Bad.
The best way to get your Inbox to zero, is to actually
process your Inbox. This means every email goes through one of the following 4 steps:
- Do
- Delegate
- Delete
- Defer
- Archive
Let's go through them one at a time:
1.
Do: Read the email, and perform whatever action it requires,
then delete it. Most actioable email does not need to be kept for reference (i.e. "Archived"), so you can go ahead and delete it.
2.
Delegate: If you know this email is not for your own list of actions and to-dos, delegate it to the person who
is responsible for that. For example, if you get an email to take a business trip, the next action would be to book the travel. If you have a secretary that does this,
Delegate the task of booking the travel to her. You could then tag this as "Waiting-For", and keep it in a "Waiting-For" folder (IMAP folders are visible as labels to GMail), or you could
Delete the email altogether.
3.
Defer: If you know that performing the action required by the email would take a long time (i.e. more than 2 minutes), defer it for later, and
move it to the folder appropriate for that. It does not belong in your Inbox, where you can sit and stare at it, or read it several times before you finally have the time to make it actionable.
4.
Delete: These are typically one-time, informational emails that do not require action and do not require being deferred anywhere. Joke emails, invites to the next office party, spam and the like are perfect candidates for this step.
5.
Archive: These emails are informative, knowledgebase, reference material you'll refer to more than once.
The important take-aways here are:
Never read the same email more than once, unless it's something you've
Deferred or reference material (i.e. stored in "
Archive"). Email should be read, actions performed, and deleted. Gone.
Do
NOT just label email and file it away out of your Inbox. That's completely counter to the GTD methodology (again, unless it's reference material in the
Archive folder).
The only email you should be left with, are unread emails in your Inbox, emails in the "
Waiting-For" folder, and your reference folders. Email that is not yet processed shouldn't be anywhere else, stashed away in sub-folders or labeled off and hidden from your view.
I'm a ninja when it comes to email, since I get over 300 per-day in 4 email accounts; about 80% of which requires my personal response to.