Inbox Zero

As a mother of nine, an entrepreneur, and a special events organizer, Ingrid Sorensen often finds herself overwhelmed with information. Her phone constantly buzzes with notifications and reminders, while requests and receipts fill her inbox. The tempo of incoming messages increases whenever she’s hosting a large event, such as the live nativity she stages in her Provo backyard most Decembers.

“As a mom who got her bachelor’s degree in her 40s and is now starting a business, the number one thing people ask me is ‘How do you have the time and energy to do all that?’” Sorensen says. “A big part of my answer is organization. I keep stuff out of my phone and my brain by processing emails and other messages as efficiently as I can.”

Sorensen, a 2021 experience design and management graduate, says that having control over her communication with others is essential to being an “efficiency junkie,” as she describes herself.

“I love the idea of a clean surface, such as a clean kitchen counter,” she says. “Clear space translates into mental clarity for me, and we all need a little more mentally clear space in our overloaded, informational world.” How does she achieve this clarity? With the message management process known as “Inbox Zero.”

Perhaps the name is a misnomer. The purpose behind Inbox Zero isn’t to always have zero messages in your inbox, although some people do accomplish that. It’s to get you to the point where zero messages in your inbox is an achievable goal. Created by Merlin Mann, a productivity writer and podcaster, the method became popular nearly two decades ago and has sparked diverse variations and applications over the years. But one thing has not changed: those who adopt a deliberate, thoughtful process for email and message management experience a long list of benefits. Practitioners see their reputations and relationships improve, their stress levels plummet, and their personal and professional efficiency increase.

Inbox Detox

For more than a decade, inbox maintenance has intrigued and challenged Lisa Thomas’s students. Thomas, a management communication instructor at BYU Marriott, considers smart email management a key element of business communication.

“A lot of people are completely overwhelmed by the number of past emails they haven’t read. Once you pass 100 or so, you just sort of give up,” Thomas says. “The idea that there’s a process for getting back to an empty inbox and then dealing with new messages in a healthy, responsible way is appealing to many people, especially students.”

Though it might not be for everyone, Thomas says that Inbox Zero works well for her. Having a nearly empty inbox helps her navigate incoming messages and recognize when there are issues that need her immediate attention. During a trip to New York City, for example, Thomas received 57 emails in a single day. “I knew that number must mean something was wrong. And indeed, there was an issue with an online assignment I’d given to my students. The number of emails in my inbox indicated that there was a problem, and I was quickly able to resolve the issue and build trust with my students.”

But how is an empty inbox possible if you’re starting from scratch—and with a very cluttered inbox? Thomas recommends taking a few steps before diving into the Inbox Zero method. First, select all emails in your inbox that are more than two weeks old. If you like, you can skim through them to see if there’s anything urgent that you may need to address, and you can deselect those. Then immediately archive all the messages that remain selected. In Microsoft Outlook, those emails go to a folder labeled “Archive”; in Gmail, they’re stored in the “All Mail” folder.

“Archiving is not the same as deleting and should be used differently,” Thomas says. “The archive feature is super important. It allows you to put messages you don’t want to deal with right then into a virtual drawer, and you can still access them easily with search options.”

Folders are another useful tool for grouping and storing important messages. Sorensen uses “tickler folders”—a reference to physical accordion-style files—to organize messages by month. For example, a ticket confirmation email for a concert in June goes into her June tickler folder. This strategy allows her to keep all important mail in chronological folders. Whatever organizing principle you choose—by date, by sender, or by topic—setting up a few key folders can help you prepare to declutter your inbox and maintain it.

Thomas’s next step is to unsubscribe from any unwanted newsletters, marketing messages, or other email lists. There’s no firm rule on when to unsubscribe, but if you can’t remember the last time you opened an email from a particular sender, it’s probably time to get off the list. Go through the messages remaining in your inbox, unsubscribe from any unwanted ones, and continue to do so with any you receive in the future. If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of email lists you find yourself on, Thomas recommends the service Unroll.Me, which helps manage subscription emails.

At this point, you should be left with about two weeks of emails in your inbox. Thomas says that this is a great point to start Mann’s five steps of Inbox Zero.

1. Delete: Delete or unsubscribe from any unwanted or irrelevant messages.
   
2. Delegate: For requests that are better suited for someone else, forward them to the appropriate individual.
   
3. Respond: Determine which emails can be acted upon quickly and take care of them right away.
   
4. Defer: Some emails may be nonurgent, or it might be better to act on them later. File these away, “snooze” them (which schedules them to reappear in your inbox at a later time), or add their action items to your to-do list and archive the messages.
   
5. Do: For all remaining emails, complete the tasks associated with each—even the things you don’t want to do. “Maybe you need to pay a parking fine,” Thomas says. “Pay it.”

When you’ve completed these five steps, your inbox should be empty. Repeat the process each day, and your inbox should—in theory—stay that way.

“Of course,” Thomas says, “keeping your inbox at zero isn’t always practical or even necessary.” For example, she’s had the same email sitting in her inbox for more than two years, reminding her to explore an interesting resource.

“It’s important to not get caught up in exactness,” Thomas notes. “The process is more of a guiding goal than a highly regimented way of dealing with email.”

Don’t Slack on Other Platforms

In its original iteration, Inbox Zero only referred to email management, but email is just one of the many digital communication systems people juggle today. Text messages, Slack, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Instagram—the list goes on.

For David Wilson, BYU Marriott assistant professor of information systems, an adaptation of Inbox Zero helps him contend with multiple types of messages and other information input streams. A self-proclaimed tech geek, Wilson enjoys finding and automating solutions to challenging problems such as this. His personal solution is a “trusted inbox,” derived from the “trusted system” developed by productivity consultant David Allen.

“A trusted inbox means a single place where every message I receive gets dumped, no matter the system,” Wilson says. “I know that if I put something there, I’ll review it eventually—even if it takes me a week or two to get to it.”

Wilson’s trusted system of choice is the productivity app Drafts, but he says many apps and services—or even paper and pen—can act as a trusted system. A feature of Drafts that Wilson finds valuable is its voice-to-text function, which allows him to dictate notes that go straight to his inbox.

Like any method of email management, trusted systems don’t work unless you commit to their maintenance. “Your inbox must—with a capital M—be reviewed on the regular,” Wilson explains. Consolidating your messages doesn’t help unless you’re clearing them out using the Inbox Zero approach. Wilson also cautions against spending too much time setting up your system. “If you’re like me and you enjoy exploring new digital tools, it’s easy to spend far more time tinkering with apps or setting up a bunch of rules for your inbox than actually managing the messages. New tools are cool, but you may have to remind yourself that if your system isn’t broken, don’t keep trying to fix it.”

As you compose and send out your own messages across various platforms, you can increase efficiency by keeping email subject lines and text introductions succinct and direct. “Try to convey the entire content of the message in just the first few words,” Thomas says.

Most of all, Thomas recommends knowing the preferred communication methods of the people you work with. If texting is acceptable, great. If not, email is always a good default.

Sorensen keeps her text management process simple. “My top rule for handling texts is to respond as quickly as possible and take action as soon as I can,” she says. “For example, the other day my daughter texted me a reminder to purchase an item online. I did it right away, spending only a minute, and it was immediately out of the way.”

Schedule Send

Dealing with a single message quickly is admirable, partly because of the time it takes to handle texts, emails, and other messages. “This is especially true if you prioritize messaging so much that it cuts in on your ability to do your work,” Thomas says.

“If you have notifications turned on and are looking at emails immediately, all day and every day, that’s a time- and energy-sapping way to deal with them,” she says. “Unless you’re waiting for something important to come in, turn off notifications. That way you’re not constantly getting pinged and having your attention overwhelmed.” For texting, this can mean muting large group chats and other senders who don’t require immediate responses. You can also use the “mark as unread” function for messages you can’t respond to right away.

Instead, review your emails and noncritical texts only at designated times every day. Thomas suggests setting aside a half hour in the late morning and an additional half hour in the late afternoon. “If you start by looking at emails first thing, then the most recent email gets too much of your attention just by virtue of happenstance,” she says. “It’s better to use that first hour to do things that you know are on your agenda for that day.”

Sorensen agrees. “The biggest mistake I’ve made is not having a regular time to review my inbox and filing system because when I don’t, things get forgotten,” she says.

When sitting down for that inbox review, Sorensen begins with the simplest messages first. She employs the two-minute rule, which means determining which messages can be handled in under two minutes. “I do those right away,” Sorensen says. “That includes doing things like registering for something, scheduling a meeting, or writing a quick reply.”

The time it takes to deal with emails can be streamlined even further with tools like Microsoft Copilot, a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that, when integrated with email services, suggests prewritten responses. With Copilot, you can review and edit suggested responses then hit “bulk send,” taking care of multiple messages from your inbox at the same time.

AI can be a potentially effective tool for reducing the “boring, soul-crushing drudgery of workplace communication,” says Brian Jackson, a BYU English professor who serves as AI Task Force chair in the College of Humanities. “Whether we’re ready or not, we will discover with each passing month the ways in which generative AI communicates better than we do when it comes to slinging information packets.”

“In addition to adapting how often we review messages, smart time management also includes managing what comes into our emails,” Thomas says. “This means notifying your colleagues of your own messaging preferences.”

Thomas gives the example of a colleague who sends you three or four emails in a row, taking up your inbox space and your time. “In response,” she says, “you can email a quick message with ‘Hey, I’ll get to these this afternoon, but next time could you put all three of these requests into one email?’ That can help others understand how to respect your time as much as you’re trying to respect their time.”

Zeroing In on People

When you can be both responsive and responsible with message management, two things happen: “First, your reputation improves. You’re seen as someone who is aware of others’ needs without blowing them off,” Thomas says. “Second, your relationships improve. People see that you care about them and can be trusted. They also see you’re someone whose time they need to respect.”

For Wilson, smart message management means less stress. He warns, however, that Inbox Zero isn’t necessarily the single best method for message management or an all-or-nothing strategy. “Inbox Zero works for me because it fits the way my brain works and the way I like to manage things. But it’s not for everyone—people should manage their tasks in ways that work for them.”

Chasing productivity to extremes can be detrimental to mental health and workplace relationships. For instance, Jackson cautions against relying too much on AI when writing because messages can be an opportunity for genuine engagement with colleagues. “The primary value of workplace communication isn’t productivity,” he says. Instead, he argues, the value is in the many different shades of innovation and empathy that come with human connection: “invention, affect, creativity, synthetic and unexpected thinking, humor, personal connections, identity-building, style, social risk, and the tortured refinement of consciousness itself.”

Whether Sorensen is writing a handbook on hosting a live nativity or recruiting actors for her own backyard event, she agrees that productivity should never come at the expense of people. “The idea of being efficient governs everything I do, and that’s a strength in some ways but a weakness in others.”

Sorensen often turns to advice author Stephen M. R. Covey gives in his book Trust and Inspire: “Be efficient with things but effective with people.” This reminds her of the importance of relationships. “You don’t ever want to treat people efficiently—that’s like getting my kids to school on time but not noticing that they’re having a really hard week,” she says. “As much as I value productivity and efficiency, I put being a mom, wife, friend, and sister first.”

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Written by Clarissa McIntire
Illustrations by Rob Dobi

About the Author
Clarissa McIntire is a BYU graduate, a PhD student at the University of Oklahoma, and the owner of a grumpy parakeet. At the moment, there are 11 unopened emails in her inbox.