Anyone else have issues keeping up with their Inbox?

[lcoughey]

As of right now, my email Inbox has 39,489 messages in it, of which 27,160 are tagged as unread. Every year or so, I completely empty my inbox and start fresh, but it doesn't take long for it to get overwhelming again.

I'm sure I can't be the worst offender here. Someone on TN must be able to top this with their own inbox, right?

 

[trevm999]

Maybe you are? I thought my personal inbox was out of control with 475 unread messages

 

[Mick]

Mail rules?

 

[kwest]

I use my inbox as a to do list. If it is still in my inbox I still have to address it. Once completed it is filed into a sub folder. I get about 100 a day including junk (not counting my employee emails). Bey the end of the day I will have 5 to 10. All read

 

[trevm999]

I use my inbox as a to do list. If it is still in my inbox I still have to address it. Once completed it is filed into a sub folder. I get about 100 a day including junk (not counting my employee emails). Bey the end of the day I will have 5 to 10. All read

This made me think of Google Inbox. I might actually give Google Inbox a try now that they've added an easy to access delete button

 

[TAPtech]

I keep mine as close to 0 unread as possible. I am vigilant against junk or mailing lists- unsubscribe from everything, or use Outlook rules to file those away so I can access them when I want to. Same with automated reports for noncritical items- those are funneled into a separate folder so they don't bother me on the phone and I can read them when I want to.

 

[lcoughey]

Common...there must be someone out there who isn't too embarrassed confess their Inbox sins.

 

[PBComputer]

I work on zero inbox. I just hate first thing in the morning when there is 65+ waiting for me.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Probably average 350 or so per day..some days probably much more, some days less. Just from 9pm or so...when I last check e-mail, to about 0530 AM when I crack the laptop and start reviewing the overnight alerts and logs, I have about 100 to 110 each morning just from various MSP services at clients over the past 8 hours overnight. Digests, logs, alerts, etc.

I have about 175 subfolders underneath my inbox.

Total amount of e-mail kept...I couldn't begin to fathom...about 19 gigs for my mailbox though.

I know I just emptied my deleted items folder sometime last week, and right now over 6,000 items in it. And we have a pretty good spam filter, so most of that is legit.

However...65% of my e-mail being "unread"....no, you win that award...I don't like a single e-mail going unread by end of the day.

 

[glennd]

zero inbox

 

[cypress]

I keep mine as close to 0 unread as possible. I am vigilant against junk or mailing lists- unsubscribe from everything, or use Outlook rules to file those away so I can access them when I want to. Same with automated reports for noncritical items- those are funneled into a separate folder so they don't bother me on the phone and I can read them when I want to.

Yup same here, I am the same way.

 

[Markverhyden]

I try to check them all but am usually overwhelmed at some point and then cannot catch up. So I'll do searches for critical senders and then mark all read, 9 accounts at this point. But I do keep everything except spam.

 

[SOHOtechRob]

Up vote for all the Inbox Zero references. Watch this old video (wow, almost 10 years!) for the method:

1. Delete / Archive
2. Respond
3. Delegate
4. Defer
5. Do

 

[jfm]

As of right now, my email Inbox has 39,489 messages in it, of which 27,160 are tagged as unread. Every year or so, I completely empty my inbox and start fresh, but it doesn't take long for it to get overwhelming again.

I'm sure I can't be the worst offender here. Someone on TN must be able to top this with their own inbox, right?

Same boat as you, just too many coming in.
I also end up at some point throwing everything in an Archive folder.

 

[Larry Sabo]

my email Inbox has 39,489 messages in it, of which 27,160 are tagged as unread

I hope the unreads are all clearly junk mail, rather than people wanting to give you money to recover their data.

 

[lcoughey]

Don't worry Larry...I have a filter that sounds a siren when I get a message from you.

 

[TurricanII]

55,000 unread today, over the last 15 years.

Unread emails are simply automated alters and device reports that may be useful in future or that were sent to me as part of a distribution group that other people are dealing with.

We all work from the ticketing system nowadays.

How may open tickets in your call logging system? That I feel is a better measure of work in progress!

 

[fencepost]

By the way, Merlin Mann doesn't really do the whole Inbox Zero thing so much anymore and I think is actually a little embarrassed by it. He does a bunch of podcasting stuff, you can find him on Back To Work and several others where he's one of the main people, and as a guest sometimes on Clockwise and a few others.

Between work, Gmail and my personal accounts I have thousands, but a lot of the work stuff is junk that I haven't set up adequate filters for (e.g. vendor announcements), a lot of the Gmail is similar, and the personal stuff is the same (but at least divided between an address I haven't really shared and a "catchall" that gets everything else sent to anything at my domain.

 

[300DDR]

Zero inbox here too. I use followupthen.com for some messages to help with that.

 

[Metanis]

I never open my Inbox unless I completely empty it out. Rules. Folders. Relentless deletion. Immediate response. Tickler folder. I operate on the assumption that if I don't have the time to read or respond right now then I'll never have the time so why keep it for sentimental reasons? E-mail from real persons get some sort of treatment right now even it is simply to mark it for future follow-up. It helps being semi-retired so that there are only a modest amount of truly important e-mail coming in every day. I typically delete 50 to 75 messages at a time after scanning the sender and subject lines.