The Incredible Shrinking Inbox

My inbox is getting to be reasonable again. After two weeks on the road, it got up over 300 messages even though I cleaned it out before I left. Now, it’s back down to 45 messages. I already use rules to break out messages that come to various mailing lists, that come to our team alias, or ones that I’m cc’ed on. I’ve realized that everything that comes into my inbox falls into one of three categories: shit I need to know, shit I need to do, and shit I don’t need. I’m trying to be really diligent getting all these things out of my inbox. Shit I need to do gets moved to the task list. Shit I need to know gets moved into some other folder – usually by category though I have Lookout if I need to search for it. Shit I don’t need gets deleted. Of course, once I’m done with my inbox, I’ve still got to tackle those nearly 400 messages in my cc, team and not to me folders. I’m hoping this will help me stay better organized – something I manager tells me that I need to work on (along with focusing on what’s important and improving my diplomacy). One thing that taking this job has taught me, you can always get more email, whether you want it or not!