FARK.com: (7517398) It's time to stop the quest for "Inbox Zero"

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		It's time to stop the quest for "Inbox Zero" (slate.com)		42
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5260 clicks; posted to Geek » on 04 Jan 2013 at 9:00 AM | Favorite | share:

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Quantumbunny		2013-01-04 09:06:48 AM

If you don't have Inbox Zero, you are a failure.

You want to achieve it easily? Kill your current account, get a new one. Only give it to what you need. Get another account, give it for use purchasing online, and opt-out of EVERYTHING. Never sign up for stupid mailing lists, give it out to marketers, and at first sign of spam, mark every item that is spam as such.

Congrats, permanent Inbox Zero.

\The only time this won't work is if you've pooched your professional e-mail address... if you did that, you know you are an idiot who used their mail wrong. There is an incredibly small chance here you are important enough/high up enough up in a large corp you are on craptons of BS. At which point, filtering should still be enough.

corronchilejano		2013-01-04 09:09:14 AM

1. Make every email go to trash.
2. Filter out the ones that SHOULDN'T ever go there.
3. Profit.

Or just done in one, your choice.

the8re		2013-01-04 09:11:13 AM

Buy a cheap domain with e-mail forwarding. Create a new e-mail for every vendor & service. When it gets spammed, buh-bye.

If you are more desparate.. try to collect for violations of sharing personal info. I don't have the time.

The Angry Hand of God		2013-01-04 09:12:52 AM

Or you could just setup Outlook's rules properly....

sprawl15		2013-01-04 09:17:50 AM

cntl+a
right click
mark as read

entropic_existence		2013-01-04 09:18:25 AM

Add me to the chorus of people who thinks this is bullshiat. I use two e-mail addresses. My work account (University) which is pretty good about catching the worst spam and that I don't use for private business, and my gmail account. Which I use for a mix of professional/private use. Gmail is also damn good at catching most spam so most of what I get are things I signed up for. If it isn't important or I don't need/want to read it I delete it. Everything else I either answer quickly, or set aside for follow-up later. Usually this is work related tasks that I can't get to right away.

I want to know when I have new e-mail, and how much new unread stuff I have sitting there for me to look at. None of this 5,672 unread e-mails bullshiat.

Hagbardr		2013-01-04 09:21:53 AM

Inbox 16k. I used to have Inbox 40k, but my wife got annoyed and deleted my old unread ones.

Boudyro		2013-01-04 09:26:04 AM

Use twitter less but record your life more? How about no to both. The details of most people's lives will matter to almost no one.

Better mobile typist? If it's long or complicated enough for typing to be an issue, farking call the intended recipient.

As for in box zero?

Simply be ruthless and make a side folder for messages you may want to save.

I "edit" for 5 weekly newspapers that each have their own e-mail, there is also a specific account that serves just for our columnists, as well as my personal and work accounts.I probably sift through more than a thousand e-mails in a given week most of which can be right clicked into oblivion. All but a handful require no response from me.

"Editing" consists of pulling what is useful out of e-mail to be bathed and presented to the public, and killing the rest. It generally ranges from an hour and a half to two hours per publication. If I didn't zero out e-mail anything useful would be lost in a sea of boner ads, political drivel, and marketing scams.

tricycleracer		2013-01-04 09:36:34 AM

In Gmail: Search for "label:unread"

Select all.

Delete all.

Voila. Inbox zero.

Carth		2013-01-04 09:40:22 AM

If something isn't important enough to read why is it important enough to save? I swear it is a form of digital hording that if TLC could make a show out of they would.

Angry Buddha		2013-01-04 09:40:49 AM

If introspection and an honest evaluation of the past year results in "I must Tweet less and blog about this revelation", you are a twat.

tricycleracer		2013-01-04 09:43:05 AM

Carth: If something isn't important enough to read why is it important enough to save? I swear it is a form of digital hording that if TLC could make a show out of they would.

But I HAVE to read through all the expired Groupon offers I haven't read for the past 2 years! I have to know what I'm missing!!!

Hagbardr		2013-01-04 09:44:39 AM

Carth: If something isn't important enough to read why is it important enough to save? I swear it is a form of digital hording that if TLC could make a show out of they would.

It scrolls off the bottom of the screen soon enough. No effort required to delete it.

zez		2013-01-04 09:55:18 AM

Nice AD for apple in the middle of the article, I wonder how much he got paid for that.

thecpt		2013-01-04 09:55:32 AM

Work email currently at 40 and trending down. Its the only thing I take pride in.

Thunderboy		2013-01-04 10:01:24 AM

Step 1: Read your email and process accordingly.

No step 2.

Fast Moon		2013-01-04 10:02:39 AM

I don't have any trouble maintaining Inbox Zero.

static.tumblr.com

bacongood		2013-01-04 10:03:35 AM

Personal email is generally at zero (currently at 2 - a coupon I want to use this weekend and an e-mail from this morning that I don't really understand why I got it, so I need to investigate it). It is gmail, so I use the stars for things that need attention in the future and otherwise tag and archieve after reading.

Work email is usually
The only downside to this all is that I tend to respond very quickly to emails, I just don't like them cluttering up my inbox. That is great for work, sometimes awkward for personal though.

Seriously, with gmail there is no excuse.

kroonermanblack		2013-01-04 10:18:02 AM

Carth: If something isn't important enough to read why is it important enough to save? I swear it is a form of digital hording that if TLC could make a show out of they would.

Nah, they can't film people dieing and gagging and such with digital media.

grinding_journalist		2013-01-04 10:33:27 AM

Boudyro: I "edit" for 5 weekly newspapers that each have their own e-mail, there is also a specific account that serves just for our columnists, as well as my personal and work accounts.I probably sift through more than a thousand e-mails in a given week most of which can be right clicked into oblivion. All but a handful require no response from me.

A newspaper editor! Heyyy, old buddy, old pal. Is there anything I could...write for you? Perhaps receive some sort of compensation for said writing?

/would like to go back to my "roots"
//and get the hell out of what I ended up in

JacksonBryan		2013-01-04 10:34:32 AM

Personal email inbox is managed as all my mail is sorted to the correct folder, i.e. utility bills, mortgage, etc. The actual inbox itself is normally just Newegg emails and Thinkgeek. A couple of emails from friends about good jokes or the quarterly chain letter from family.

Work email needs to be inbox zero, at least for me.

lemurs		2013-01-04 10:43:50 AM

Personal email and automated notifications (stuff ordered, shipped, etc.) get read, spam from legitimate businesses come with an "unsubscribe" link which just takes a minute to do, and spam from Nigerian princes get filtered. It's not that hard to keep an inbox from overflowing with unread junk.

rev. dave		2013-01-04 10:55:54 AM

As someone who has been in software development since 1996 I do not feel pressured to keep up with all the crap other people deal with. I avoid extra technology. Why because if I am dealing with technology, someone better be paying me $40 an hour to care.

I have zero unread emails in both my work and home email.

Work- I use outlook rules to sort everything as it comes in.
Home - very few people I want to talk to actually email me at that address. I mark most emails I do not expect as spam and let the filters deal with it. I empty spam every day.

No social media accounts, no twitter, the only site I use is fark and I am fine with that. I keep my cell phone on silent and do not respond to text messages. ]
I spend a lot of time watching shows on Hulu and playing video games.

The friends who only communicate via Facebook are no longer friends since I do not have an account and will not have one. I don't want all my stuff copyrighted by someone else and I don't want people information farming me either.

FuryOfFirestorm		2013-01-04 11:15:09 AM

entropic_existence: Add me to the chorus of people who thinks this is bullshiat. I use two e-mail addresses. My work account (University) which is pretty good about catching the worst spam and that I don't use for private business, and my gmail account. Which I use for a mix of professional/private use. Gmail is also damn good at catching most spam so most of what I get are things I signed up for. If it isn't important or I don't need/want to read it I delete it. Everything else I either answer quickly, or set aside for follow-up later. Usually this is work related tasks that I can't get to right away.

I want to know when I have new e-mail, and how much new unread stuff I have sitting there for me to look at. None of this 5,672 unread e-mails bullshiat.

Gmail is awesome. I haven't gotten a single piece of spam since I created my account over 2 years ago.

Meanwhile, I keep my old Yahoo mailbox around as a junk account. Even with all the damn filters turned to 11, I was getting dozens of those f*cking Nigerian scam emails a day.

Grither		2013-01-04 11:15:30 AM

I disagree with almost his whole list.... except for the "using twitter less" one. inbox zero is easy enough, I get there a couple times a month, usually (cause I am exceptionally lazy). And I'm already a decent touchscreen typist. And I guess using Android more is ok, too. Also, no, don't record more of your life, how about actually experiencing and enjoying more of your life instead of doing it through a damn lens??

Celerian		2013-01-04 11:25:07 AM

At work: I use outlook rules to filter out the automated messages from our factory system. We get a lot of emails from this for every stupid little thing that is an error, but some of them are by design and negligible. I will monitor these folders throughout the day to make sure that they're not incredibly high and denoting a problem I should deal with. The auto archiver that runs every so often clears them out if they're older than 2 days, because at that point, who cares? Everything else gets read or responded to pretty quickly. I could probably do a bit better on my organization of it, but for the most part I am easily at Inbox Zero at work.

At Home: I have had the same email address that I use for everything for a little over 10 years now. Its on a web server I pay for, and while I do get some junk, a lot of it is spam that I get from accounts I've signed up for or purchased online, and most of those can get thrown away. I'm not too careful about these. Usually I don't have anything too relevent in my inbox, so most can get deleted or read right away. I need to do a better job of keeping this clean.

error 303		2013-01-04 11:34:44 AM

That's one of the sillier things I've seen lately...

If you've got that much worthless email, setup your spam filters, delete what you'll never read, maybe checkout unroll.me if you're getting all sorts of mailing list junk, and deal with it. Or don't. Email is a tool, not a life style.

Same with twitter.

And recording every apsect of your life? Man, it always amazes me how often I see people at concerts or sports events trying to film stuff instead of enjoying the aciton... maybe that's just me, but I don't get it. Do people go home and rewatch 60 second clips of their favorite band from their cell phone and think to themselves "man, that was awesome, I'm so glad I captured that moment on my cellphone"?

Technology has given us a lot of really nifty tools to make life easier, but when you let these things actually integrate themselves into your life I think you should really sotp and reexamine your priorities a bit.

Titanius Anglesmith		2013-01-04 11:51:24 AM

Oh, hai!

meanmutton		2013-01-04 11:53:31 AM

grinding_journalist: Boudyro: I "edit" for 5 weekly newspapers that each have their own e-mail, there is also a specific account that serves just for our columnists, as well as my personal and work accounts.I probably sift through more than a thousand e-mails in a given week most of which can be right clicked into oblivion. All but a handful require no response from me.

A newspaper editor! Heyyy, old buddy, old pal. Is there anything I could...write for you? Perhaps receive some sort of compensation for said writing?

/would like to go back to my "roots"
//and get the hell out of what I ended up in

Hey, I hear that HuffPo is always "hiring".

meanmutton		2013-01-04 11:55:48 AM

Become a better mobile typist.

Click on that button that lets you choose your keyboard style, select Swype, Done.

grinding_journalist		2013-01-04 12:22:27 PM

meanmutton: Hey, I hear that HuffPo is always "hiring".

Yeah, but I'd like to be a Journalist again, not a "Journalist".

Tricky Chicken		2013-01-04 12:31:06 PM

I thought they had found and killed the person that sent out the first spam email. Hence the term 'Inboz Zero' like 'patient zero'.

I read the article and was subsequently disappointed.

jbc		2013-01-04 12:51:51 PM

All the taste of regular Inbox with no calories? Sign me up.

kab		2013-01-04 02:16:19 PM

*sigh*

1. If it's a personal mailbox, who cares. If it's a work mailbox, and email is a big part of your daily routine, you suck at your job / need to learn how to organize better.

2. Twatter sucks. That is all.

3. Mobile keyboards suck, so why bother getting *better* on inferior hardware?. And what do you care anyhow? It's not like you're replying to emails with any trace of punctuality. Take a typing class, and you won't want to waste your time typing on a mobile device unless it's the direst of emergencies.

4. I too, stay awake at night wondering what the icons look like on an Android phone. Wait, scratch that. I don't.

5. Yes, I'm sure your son will love the idea of being hounded 24/7 by his shakey-cam dad (when he's not posting on twitter, or looking up the latest android patch).

cryinoutloud		2013-01-04 02:29:01 PM

Fast Moon: I don't have any trouble maintaining Inbox Zero.
[static.tumblr.com image 96x96]

I usually have three or four things in my personal email. If I get more than about 10, I have to clean it up. No Facebook, no social media at all, except for Fark. And I'm not spending as much time here as I used to either--10 years of the same arguments does wear out.

The internet is here to amuse me, give me shiat to read, and maybe make my life a little easier--not to give me a job managing all that useless information.

lordargent		2013-01-04 03:11:14 PM

Quantumbunn: The only time this won't work is if you've pooched your professional e-mail address

What if some noob with a similar name screws it up for you (by assuming that their autogenerated e-mail address would be first_initial+last_name, despite the fact someone else already has that name so theirs would actually be first_initial+middle_initial+last_name.

So with that assumption, they go sign up to receive engineering related e-mails.

// dude, stop entering the wrong e-mail on these trade journal sites!

Macular Degenerate		2013-01-04 11:18:31 PM

Delete anything unread that is older than 1 month. If you haven't read it in the last 30 days, you're never going to read it. If it's really urgent, that person will email again, call, text, FB message, twit, pinterest it, or just pick up their lazy ass and come tell you in person.

Bathia_Mapes		2013-01-05 12:03:39 AM

Depending on how busy it is I average 40-60 daily. It takes me about a half-hour to clear out my inbox each morning (usually 25-30 emails), with more coming as the day progresses.

I rarely get spam in any of my gmail accounts except for very recently when I started to get stuff from some organization called Eventful. They were sending me emails related to events such as movie theater offerings, etc., all in New York. I live in Oregon and most certainly didn't sign up for anything from this company. All emails from them now automatically go in the spam folder.

blue_2501		2013-01-05 12:41:58 AM

Wow, does this person not work in a corporate environment? If you don't read your work email, you die. As in "people will come to your cube and kill you".

Also, WTF is "Inbox Zero"? Some made up BS term solely for this article?

Boudyro		2013-01-05 12:52:49 AM

lordargent		2013-01-05 01:27:13 AM

blue_2501: Also, WTF is "Inbox Zero"? Some made up BS term solely for this article?

Some ADD blogger back in 2009 was writing a book about how to reclaim your inbox ... he never finished the book ... probably couldn't pay attention long enough.

grinding_journalist		2013-01-05 01:43:46 PM

Boudyro: Sorry man can't help you. Most of our content is just whatever the community sends us via e-mail. Our writing staff consists of old folks who get a kick out of seeing their name in print. Basically we take whatever is freely given. There is very very very little journalism involved.

That sounds eerily like the "job" I had at a small community paper outside of Vegas that eventually forced me to do what I do now.

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