I removed over 11,000 messages from my inbox today and now I’m using the empty inbox system. So far: I’m LOVING it. Somehow it just feels like I’m in control now or something.
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Peter Van Dijck 
It does feel good but one day it will start to get filled back up again so you need a day where you empty it all out even when your doing this system. For eg, say you go 3 weeks with empty inbox, then one day it starts to get filled again and you leave it and then it takes you time to get back on the system. However if that same scenario happened but on Sunday that week you would empty it, it would allow you to get back on that empty system in the long run.
I meant every Sunday you aim to check that it is empty, and if it isn’t you empty it and get back on the system.
I find this empty inbox phenomenon strange. I leave everything in my inbox (except for certain emails which are automatically sorted into folders server-side).
What do you do to empty it? Do you just delete them (I keep them all so that I can search them later) or just move to a different folder?
I used to do that too.
But (I use Gmail), now I just archive any message that I don’t have to follow up. They still show up in search, but my inbox only has emails that have to be followed up.
It gives a strange sense of relaxation, try it, just archive your entire inbox. You can always unarchive everything.
So really, you’re using your inbox as a todo list. Most emails I don’t need to action, so I prefer to simply transfer emails to be actioned onto the calendar where they’ll roll forward each day.
Well, almost every email needs to be read, right? So I open it, if there is no to-do that goes with it (ie. I can forget about it), I archive it.
The zen-like relaxation feeling continues. So far so good :)
Kris: I keep it empty as things come in. Something comes in, it has to go out pretty soon. It’s like my mission now :)