inbox zero - have you achieved it yet?

Have you heard about inbox zero ... it's what we all want to achieve and never quite get there. A copy of the four hour week is bouncing around the office and some of us (ie Sarah) are new found evangelists of this new way of life; and 'inbox zero' fits quite nicely into this ethos. We know very well that we shouldn't be dictated to by what comes into our inbox and that in fact, this is a very inefficient way to work but still we do it. Inbox zero is the new way of inbox life which is based around five actions: Delete, Delegate, Respond, Defer, Do.

Personally, we like the delete action the most but are too scared to use it - so we did an interesting thing the other day - Michelle hoofed a load of emails into another temp folder and this was a month ago and she hasn't missed them, hasn't had to refer to them and so really she think they can be deleted. But then there are always those times when a year later, we might have to refer back to correspondence from a client by email.... and its a total night mare if it has been deleted.

King of the empty inbox is Merlin Mann who has been preaching his gospel since 2006 and he has even done a video too...

To find out more
http://www.43folders.com/izero

As they mentioned in the Times Online at the weekend, trying to get to inbox zero is like trying to loose those first two pounds after Christmas... but once it comes off, there is no stopping you... but equally, if you dont keep an eye on it you are back to inbox full all over again.