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Ah .... that's better !

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Excuse the brevity of this post,  just wanted to share my success with you before I am done for the night ;-)

Living in a world of hyper connectivity (thanks Nortel) sometimes means that ones grip on communications can get out of control.  For example,  I have had a few days of 'back to back meetings' (which is luckily quite rare for me) that has resulted in me losing control of my inbox and reach 260 unread mails.  I personally like to leave the office with sub 100 emails and feel really good if I am in the 0 to 40 range,  with that in mind I decided to do some work when the Microsoft UK communication machine is 'dormant' and as you can see I have got myself down to 53 unread items,  23 of which are sent only to me :-) i.e. most are something I personally need to action rather than ones that are just 'FYI'.

Key learning's for me:-

  • Always schedule time in the day for email and make sure its used for that and only that
  • Although pulling a 'late one' isn't preferable,  its probably better than battling with your inbox every morning for the next week or so

Question for you all then if you don't mind .... look forward to your comments below !

  1. What is the largest amount of unread emails you have ever had in your inbox.  Exclude distribution lists you 'store for future reference',  spam and anything else that doesn't really count?  This leaves you with unread email with stuff you need to digest and/or respond to.
  2. Does anyone manage to get their unread email down to 0 ?  If so,  what's your secret to achieving this perfect state of 'inbox zen' ?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Best way to get your unread count to zero? Right-click, Mark All as Read :) Currently my unread count in Inbox is 322 (out of 2422 items) and the total unread count across the entire mailbox is, gulp, 26,757. As you can tell, I don't often read all the email I get sent ;)

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    If you are a regular OfficeRocker reader you might think I've developed a bit of an obsession with

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Ah,  your one of those 'sign up for a DL and keep all the email' type people :-)

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2007
    I have had 700 emails when I returned from a vacation (that is excluding the cc's, fyis, and non- 'action oriented' items. All the information contained on these emails had to be digested before I began work, since I work for a Product Support division and all the emails contained customer issues that were still on-going ... Spending 20-30 minutes each morning for reading, responding and flagging emails for action, and not scheduling meeting during that time is the secret of keeping my inbox clean every day! I have some friends who finish reading/responding to emails from home and start to work at 9am instead of 8am, that way they spend the time wisely, which otherwise would be spent waiting on rush hour traffic!