The Clean Inbox: An Update

So, I dumped my entire inbox into a folder for "later" a few days ago and started over with a clean slate. I'm pleased to say that I have maintained the serenity of the clean inbox, now having just four messages which all require action this morning (that is, they should be gone by noon). I highly recommend this, as it's so easy to go ahead and tidy the inbox when there's only 10 to 30 messages instead of 100+.

Most interesting about this process has been watching the things that I let sit and thinking about why I let them turn into e-clutter. There was email about a project I can't make any headway on; there's guilt and annoyance attached to those. I decided to file them without even trying to take action, because there's nothing I can do and just looking at the the email upset me. I know what's next on that project and there's no reason to beat myself up about it.

Two that I held onto were negative responses to something I had done; when I really looked at it, I was holding onto them because I wanted there to be some way to go back in time or argue with the senders and change their content. That's not very likely, is it? I was keeping the email to remind myself to try something different next time. Yuck. Into the trash with those.

I read somewhere that there's always a really good reason we keep things beyond their use or time of intent, and I have realized that in this case, I'm not keeping email--I'm keeping feelings, and a lot of negative feelings at that! That's just not useful.

Maybe with this understanding I can make the change in my inbox permanent. My new mantra is that email is email; reply to it, act on it, file it, or trash it. A clean inbox is a happy inbox.

Now, I wonder if I can start going through my email backfiles five messages at a time?

WDT