Ive been reading 43 Folders recently, paying special attention to their Inbox Zero series, with tips on getting your email inbox down to zero messages. The latest post in the series, Processing to Zero, provides helpful tips on doing quick triage on email messages. The key to the technique is quick processing of chunks of mail: reference for some, a To Respond” mailbox for others, and the trash for most. The more brutal you are (or if you prefer, realistic”), the quicker you will get through it.
In particular, I have set up smart folders in Mail on Mac OS X so that they are divided into four groups: messages received in the last 2 days; received in the last 5 days; received between 5 and 60 days; and received more than 60 days ago. Since Mail sorts folders by name, I have named those folders Alive, Breathing, Comatose, and Dead. In keeping with the triage theme, that will hopefully help me to deal with those messages realistically. Why spend minutes or even seconds agonizing over a terminal patient, when that precious time could be used to save one that still has a chance? I will try these techniques over the next few weeks and report back on how well it has worked. If I am diligent and ruthless, hopefully I will have zero messages in my inbox by then.
