Anybody practicing "inbox zero"? Thoughts?

[destrekor]

Oh I'm surprised this happened actually. We're still on XP and there are no plans to move. Too much proprietary crappy software. 2007 blows too, don't do it! It's soooo slow, choppy, and overall buggy. I'm getting used to the theme now but I found it was really hard to read some of the items too like folder names. I hate how the style these days for programs and websites is using grays instead of solid colors on white. Makes stuff hard to read.

Well it wasn't really matched to XP.

XP is slow, choppy, and overall buggy.
Wait, what am I saying... of course it's a great match!


But seriously - 2007 was somewhat slow. 2010 is/was great.
2013 is kickass.

 

[Craig234]

I've had nearly 100% full Anandtech mail for years. Luckily personal email seems to have unlimited storage.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I have an email from July 4th, 1776. Something about a revolution or something. Haven't bothered to read it yet.

 

[SagaLore]

I never have anything unread in my personal Gmail box. Looking at my work inbox I have 18,309 unread. :hmm:

KT

18,257 of those are mine. So you ARE ignoring me.

 

[Markbnj]

I have an email from July 4th, 1776. Something about a revolution or something. Haven't bothered to read it yet.

Then you probably didn't get the reply all on the Brooklyn thing, either. Didn't go so well.

 

[Jeff7]

You just upgraded to 2007? A little behind the curve don't you think

I could see not getting 2013 (it ticks me off to no end at times, licensing nightmares just make it worse) but I'd have at least gone to 2010 if you needed to upgrade from 2003 or older.

Could be worse - could be Office "We can deactivate your software remotely unless you give us money at regular intervals" 365.


"Cloud" software - "Because you just can't get enough of giving a large company even more control over your data."

 

[Mide]

My inbox is always at zero, unless the email has not been read and processed. So far I'm the only one I've ever met who has this happening.

 

[Lean L]

That "What is Inbox Zero" page has no meaningful content. I guess it's "Webpage Zero".

I noticed that. I'm getting real sick of these sites that try to be obscure. Give me a brief marketing section that explains what the product is. I don't want to view your crappy powerpoint that only contains clipart and 10 words either. It's unrefined and shows lack of effort in even the most basic promotion.

Edit: Also two links on the main page that link to the main page. WTF?

 

[destrekor]

Could be worse - could be Office "We can deactivate your software remotely unless you give us money at regular intervals" 365.


"Cloud" software - "Because you just can't get enough of giving a large company even more control over your data."

Why else you do you think Adobe finally decided to go all-cloud for regular software updates from now on?

"an update is available" Adobe has seen the light.. the golden light.

Buying permanent licenses? Nobody wants that!! You want to pay for it regularly, like utilities, because that's what SaS really is, right?! You don't like that big price for regular licensing, so we got rid of that.
[shhhh, don't add up annual costs + regular upgrades every few years]

 

[IGemini]

Each day I make sure both of my work and personal emails have no unread messages. I've always done that.

That site is utter garbage. They really had to give an hour lecture/video for this concept? I couldn't stand to watch more than two minutes.

 

[KeithTalent]

18,257 of those are mime. So you ARE ignoring me.

Sorry bro, ladies first. :wub:

KT

 

[Patt]

I manage Inbox Zero on my personal account, and my work account is pretty darn close. If it gets over 10, then I've got a critical issue going on that I have needed to neglect the normal communications for. For reference, I get about 100-125 emails a day work-wise, but my filtering system is finally working the way I need it to.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I noticed that. I'm getting real sick of these sites that try to be obscure. Give me a brief marketing section that explains what the product is. I don't want to view your crappy powerpoint that only contains clipart and 10 words either. It's unrefined and shows lack of effort in even the most basic promotion.

Edit: Also two links on the main page that link to the main page. WTF?

This, WTF retarded website.

"What is Inbox Zero?" "A thing someone came up with." Do they speak English?

 

[Train]

OK that site was a bad link, I just figured the first thing that came up with a google search was a goo description, it's not.

Scraped from another site:

To understand Inbox Zero you need to grasp the practices behind David Allen’s "getting things done" before you will understand Inbox Zero.

Basically its this:
1. Email comes in over the day.
2. At scheduled times you sit down, uninterrupted, and process your inbox.
3. Every email you decide:
a. Delete it – if its junk
b. Do it – if it takes 2 minutes or less
c. Delegate it – if more efficient to
d. Defer it – schedule it in your calendar
4. Then plan your day and week out with the remaining actionable tasks.

 

[Jeff7]

Why else you do you think Adobe finally decided to go all-cloud for regular software updates from now on?

"an update is available" Adobe has seen the light.. the golden light.

Buying permanent licenses? Nobody wants that!! You want to pay for it regularly, like utilities, because that's what SaS really is, right?! You don't like that big price for regular licensing, so we got rid of that.

Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupohgodshutup.

*shudder*



I just envisioned an army of accountants and upper management, LOTR style: "FOR THE SHAREHOLDERS!!!!" and then they proceed to charge.

Except they have no weapons or shields, as they were deemed to be an unnecessary expenditure.

[shhhh, don't add up annual costs + regular upgrades every few years]

Accounting magic can turn that into a profit - or at least make it look like it's profitable, so their boss won't yell at them.




I wish Linux wasn't so....Linuxy. (And that applies to programs like GIMP, and various other open source software.) It was written by programmers, and seems catered for people who don't mind recompiling the kernel every few weeks, because they think it's fun.
(Then there's the opposite extreme, of making a system assume that you have the intelligence and skill of a braindead shrew.)

I guess give it time. There's a lot of money in big software companies, enough to buy your own branch of government. Maybe we'll see a push to make open source software illegal.
Freely sharing software, without needing to profit off of it....damn socialists, trying to undermine our gloriously patriotic software empires.

OK that site was a bad link, I just figured the first thing that came up with a google search was a goo description, it's not.

Scraped from another site:

To understand Inbox Zero you need to grasp the practices behind David Allen’s "getting things done" before you will understand Inbox Zero.

Basically its this:
1. Email comes in over the day.
2. At scheduled times you sit down, uninterrupted, and process your inbox.
3. Every email you decide:
a. Delete it – if its junk
b. Do it – if it takes 2 minutes or less
c. Delegate it – if more efficient to
d. Defer it – schedule it in your calendar
4. Then plan your day and week out with the remaining actionable tasks.

He must work at a different sort of company.

- Don't answer e-mail within 10 minutes = phonecall to ask about status of e-mail.
- Uninterrupted time? An interesting concept.
- Schedule it. Then reschedule it. Then delegate it. Then get it delegated back to you. Then reschedule it. Then do half of it before another interruption reschedules it.
- Plan your day. Until another e-mail or phonecall comes in which screws up your plan.


At work, I don't really plan much beyond about an hour or two into the future, because there usually isn't much point.



(Posting on lunch break, for those curious, during which I already ended up taking two phonecalls and writing 1 e-mail. "I'm on lunch" is only an acceptable excuse if you physically leave the premises.)

 

[dave_the_nerd]

They're all read and responded to, of course. I just use the search and indexing functions in my mail client rather than organizing them into folders.

 

[lxskllr]

OK that site was a bad link, I just figured the first thing that came up with a google search was a goo description, it's not.

Scraped from another site:

Seems like a fancy title for "doing your job properly". I watched about 15 minutes of the video from the first link, but it looked like a wordy way of explaining the obvious. Perhaps it's useful to remind people of how to handle mail, but I wouldn't call it a technique competing amongst equals. It's the right way, and other methods are wrong. I'd like to hear a convincing argument for not doing your job, temporary convenience aside.

 

[JimKiler]

OK that site was a bad link, I just figured the first thing that came up with a google search was a goo description, it's not.

Scraped from another site:To understand Inbox Zero you need to grasp the practices behind David Allen’s "getting things done" before you will understand Inbox Zero.

Basically its this:
1. Email comes in over the day.
2. At scheduled times you sit down, uninterrupted, and process your inbox.
3. Every email you decide:
a. Delete it – if its junk
b. Do it – if it takes 2 minutes or less
c. Delegate it – if more efficient to
d. Defer it – schedule it in your calendar
4. Then plan your day and week out with the remaining actionable tasks.

thanks I was going to concur with a others that I still have no idea what this concept is even after visiting the site.

About 3b above, my current job i can get deluged with lots of 2 minute tasks and you cannot get through your email if you do them all. But then again i have a lot less emails than i used to, now I get through all my emails everyday and no longer have thousands of unread ones (that is after auto moving the system generated ones).

 

[Train]

At my previous job, I averaged 60+ emails an hour. While most were from automated processes and many of those could be deleted without reading, it was still too much to keep up with and get my job done. Sometimes it IS that hard.

Ya my last job was like that. The problem is when a company gets into the habit of dumping everything into email, it's just noise. Those types of alerts should be sent to a logging system instead, where the data can be analyzed or monitored meaningfully. Once everyone has automatic filters set up, all those emails are doing is causing network traffic and filling up hard drives.

 

[Red Storm]

I've been a practitioner of "inbox zero" ever since I first started emailing. Works just fine with Gmail today.

 

[Train]

He must work at a different sort of company.

- Don't answer e-mail within 10 minutes = phonecall to ask about status of e-mail.
- Uninterrupted time? An interesting concept.
- Schedule it. Then reschedule it. Then delegate it. Then get it delegated back to you. Then reschedule it. Then do half of it, before another interruption reschedules it.
- Plan your day. Until another e-mail or phonecall comes in which screws up your plan.


At work, I don't really plan much beyond about an hour or two into the future, because there usually isn't much point.

Sounds like you work at a nightmare of an inefficient company.

If someone called me for not responding to an email after 10 minutes I'd be like "bitch, email isn't instant messaging."

 

[SlitheryDee]

I don't see why this is necessary. I have no problem identifying what needs to be acted upon in my email. I certainly don't worry about it like the existence of this method implies that some people do. I don't understand this. Is the presence of a large number next to the word "inbox" really a cause of distress for people? Isn't that somewhat irrational?

 

[Red Storm]

Is the presence of a large number next to the word "inbox" really a cause of distress for people? Isn't that somewhat irrational?

Imagine having a large number next to "missed calls". It's pretty similar. Unless you get bombarded by spam (I don't), then seeing a large number means that many people sent you a message of some kind so it's worth checking out. Doesn't really happen to me though, I keep unread mail down to 0 every day.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Imagine having a large number next to "missed calls". It's pretty similar. Unless you get bombarded by spam (I don't), then seeing a large number means that many people sent you a message of some kind so it's worth checking out. Doesn't really happen to me though, I keep unread mail down to 0 every day.

I similarly don't let missed calls or text messages bother me. I can't remember the last time I returned either one unless it was specifically asked of me. If it's important, they'll get in touch.

 

[Red Storm]

If it's important, they'll get in touch.

...

I similarly don't let missed calls or text messages bother me.

:hmm: