I strive for inbox zero on a regular basis, and it’s more challenging at some times than others.
When I am about to go on the road, I go into overdrive to try and clean out my inbox, and I largely use the system from Getting Things Done by David Allen.
But it’s still an ongoing challenge with the volume of email I have coming in. I was just looking at my reports from Gmail Meter, and I received nearly 5,000 emails this past July.
Like most people, I have peaks and valleys for email throughout the month with weekends being a little lighter. Towards the end of July, I had a big spike with Affiliate Summit coming up.
One of the reasons I am able to keep my inbox lean is my pretty rapid response as emails come in. In July, I replied to more than 90% of emails in less than a day.
But there are some emails that can’t be dealt with right away.
In those cases, I use Boomerang for Gmail, which enables you to set up reminders to re-contact people who don’t get back to you.
This is great for pushing out things that can’t be touched until later. So, I’ll have a bunch of things boomeranging on me a couple days after Affiliate Summit.
That’s fine with me – for now I’ve got all of the time sensitive stuff out of the way and a clear mind.