Email can be a major time drain and without proper email management, we can spend literally the entire day on email. There are two approaches to tackling the email Inbox. Some productivity gurus promote deleting all non-priority emails or filing them in folders, until your Inbox reads zero. On the other side of the spectrum is the strategy of never deleting email. There are pros and cons to both approaches.
The Email Inbox Zero Approach
Productivity guru Merlin Mann advocates striving to get your email Inbox to zero. He writes,
Just remember that every email you read, re-read, and re-re-re-re-re-read as it sits in that big dumb pile is actually incurring mental debt on your behalf. The interest you pay on email you’re reluctant to deal with is compounded every day and, in all likelihood, it’s what’s led you to feeling like such a useless slacker today. Maybe? Think about it.
The main argument of this approach is that having emails in your Inbox uses up mental energy. So if you can either delete or file every email that comes in, you are eliminating the mental burden. Additional benefits of getting your Inbox to zero are that you don’t have to re-read emails that you have read before and it can lower stress and bring you peace of mind of being finished. The downside of the Inbox zero approach is that each time you delete an unimportant email, it takes a few seconds. These seconds can add up if you multiply it by 1,000 for the week. Although if you limit unnecessary emails by unsubscribing to newsletters, turning off alerts, and even telling your friends to stop sending funny cat pictures, getting your Inbox to zero suddenly becomes much easier.
You can read about Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero series at http://www.43folders.com/izero
The Never Delete Email Approach
I take a starkly different approach to managing my email Inbox, I never delete email. The thinking behind this approach has to do with the presence of a search box, which most email Inboxes have. Why waste time sorting and deleting your mail, when you can instantly summon any email by entering a few keywords that you recall. If an email requires action, write a quick note on your to do list. When you have time for the task, search the name of the person who sent the email and chances are the email you need is at the top of the search results. The benefit of this approach is that you don’t spend time deleting and sorting email and you always have access to emails that you need in the future.
Do you have a preference or a different email strategy? Share it in the comments.