Saturday, February 23, 2013

Going from 3000+ unread in box to 8....or trying to embrace inbox zero

I've always believed in inbox zero in theory. But I realized a few things.
  • I get a lot of e-mail.
  • Most of the e-mail that I get I don't read. 
  • Not everything in my inbox is actionable.
  • Or important.
  • I don't delete e-mail.
  • I don't need to see e-mail that doesn't matter at this point.
  • I don't send much e-mail on my personal e-mail.

So what I did to get down to 8 unread e-mails from 3200+ emails is

  1. I batched going through the last month of e-mail.
  2. Unsubscribed to mailing lists that I'm not interested in. 
  3. Updated Filters based on the last month or two of e-mail that made it to my inbox. 
  4. Declared e-mail bankruptcy by archiving any e-mail older than 8 weeks old. 
Now when I look at e-mail in my inbox, it's made it past a lot of filters to catch my attention. It also makes e-mail on my mobile device (iPad, Kindle Fire, or Android phone) less annoying because I don't sound-based/vibration based alerts everytime I get an e-mail. 

A tool that I found handy through this process was Gmail Meter. It helped me understand who was sending me the most e-mail and who I'm actually sending e-mail to. It provided a monthly report to you in your e-mail.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Another watch that's caught my eye

I think I'd found my next watch. 

Link to Marvin

I really like the shape and the coloration of watch. The dial is simple and the logo is different (not Rolex or Omega). For all this, you also get a Swiss-made watch.