Living Behind The Curve

Every Thursday is Goat-Free Simplicity day at Living Behind the Curve.

I was a geek anomaly – the one person among my peers that always had an empty Inbox. Every time someone remarked freeing it must be, I shivered. I was slave to my folders.

Every time I joined a new list, or made a new contact, I created a new filter, a new label. Eventually, those folders became so involved and cluttered that I couldn’t find anything, much less know what to do with it when I did. This nasty habit also spilled over into my RSS reader, where dozens of feeds were being corralled in to almost as many labels.

One day, I snapped. I needed to go one step beyond email bankruptcy and find a system that would keep the clutter under control. A few brainstorming sessions later, I did it, and you can do it too.

Here’s what I did:

• All of the existing messages were marked as read. This allowed me to mentally release all those items from my to-do list.
• All of my messages, no matter their age or subject matter, were moved to a “Saved” folder. I can search them if I need to, but otherwise they are out of sight.
• I deleted all of my filters and rules. Any incoming email was now hitting my Inbox directly and could not be ignored.
• Any incoming messages were subject to a game of hardball. If I didn’t gain value from that message, I took 15 seconds to unsubscribe from that service and delete the message.
• When a valuable message arrived, I dealt with it immediately. I moved it to a new general label or left it in the Inbox, starred for later.
• Because I use Gmail to catch a number of different addresses, I created filters by incoming address. My personal mail goes into one folder, my freelancing mail to another, etc. I use those folders as mini-Inboxes, and process each one as I have the time.
• Once a day, I make a point to review my starred items. I may not take action on all of them, but it gives me an excellent idea of what needs to be done.

Traditional email bankruptcy scared the hell out of me, but this process was so useful that I used it to clean up my RSS feeds as well. It’s not terribly time-consuming, and it’s incredibly freeing. I’ve added this to my household spring cleaning list: vacuum refrigerator coils, power-wash the deck, refresh email/RSS. I hope that these habits, in conjunction with common-sense practices like those listed here, will keep me from once again becoming a slave to my mail.