7 Days to Inbox Zero
Take your e-mail inbox to empty in just 7 days by developing a system that will make inbox zero your new normal.
5 essential ingredients for effective e-mail management
Welcome to day 1 of my 7 Days to Inbox Zero game plan. Before you get started, there are a few things you may want to set up: Gmail: My method for getting your inbox to zero relies heavily on Gmail’s exceptionally powerful filters. So if you aren’t...
Reduce the volume of your incoming e-mail with an e-mail “vacation”
It’s hard to empty your inbox if you’ve got a steady steam of inbound e-mail. The good news is that the week between Christmas and New Year’s is the perfect time to switch off the incoming flood. Yes, I’m talking about a vacation auto-responder...
5 steps to emptying your e-mail inbox
You could get to inbox zero the way you probably have countless times before, by working your way through that pile one message at a time. That can be very time-consuming, and it also misses the great opportunity that an overflowing inbox provides: the opportunity to...
Empty your inbox with Gmail filters
The heart of my system for getting to inbox zero and keeping my inbox on empty is Gmail filters: rules that do a lot of the work of processing my e-mail so that I can focus my attention on what matters most. If you’ve been following my 7 days to inbox zero,...
21 Gmail filters that will empty your e-mail inbox
Anyone can empty their inbox in 7 days, if you give them enough coffee and don’t care about preserving their will to live. But if you want that shiny new inbox to stay empty, you need a set of filters (rules) that will help keep unnecessary e-mail from hitting...
TV for multi-tasking: 10 shows to help process your e-mail
We’re 5 days into the 7-day quest for Inbox Zero by 2011, which means we’re now at the drudgery phase. One of my productivity tricks is to save mindless, tedious chores for the evening, when I enjoy our home media setup by watching TV shows while I do my...
Day 6: Stop using your e-mail inbox as a post-it
Welcome to 7 days to inbox zero, day 6. By now you should have cleared out at least 60% of your inbox — and accumulated a giant pile of messages in your three “systems needed” folders: “unsubscribe needed”, “filters needed”...
How to create Gmail labels that help empty your e-mail inbox
Before you get get rolling with your new filters, you’ll need to set up some labels. I described my collection of alternate mail processing boxes (aka quasi-inboxes) in my first blog post about inbox zero, and offer more suggestions about label setup in my blog...
4 steps to unsubscribing from unwanted e-mail
If you’re following 7 days to an empty inbox, you have set up three “systems needed” folders, which you’ve used to stow e-mail messages that didn’t hit your inbox in the first place. One of these folders was “unsubscribe...About me
I am an independent writer, speaker and researcher, and the author of Work Smarter with Social Media for Harvard Business Review Press. My work focuses on how people and organizations can work smarter and live better online. I am a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor's Passcode, JSTOR Daily and The Harvard Business Review, and I am represented for speaking engagements by the Lavin Agency.