A year ago I set myself the ridiculous task of labeling and filing every single email in my business inbox, with the goal of having an empty inbox into which new emails will arrive ready to be processed and filed away. I always liked the idea of a "true" inbox that functions as such, instead of just being a huge list of all my emails. 

I've used this address for 3 years and as you can imagine there were thousands and thousands of emails in the inbox. Every day, when I had a moment to spare, I'd label maybe 10 or so of them, sometimes more if I felt like it. 

Tonight I finally completed the task. I now have a completely empty inbox. 

Boy what an anticlimax. 

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Congrats.

Karyn


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I am mentally incapable of deleting an email. What if I was on fire, and the only way to put myself out was to recall an email from 2 years ago? You have to be prepared for these situations. 

sharke

Karyn


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I am mentally incapable of deleting an email. What if I was on fire, and the only way to put myself out was to recall an email from 2 years ago? You have to be prepared for these situations. 

LOL - you sound like my wife. I find coupons that expired 3 years ago - she won't dispose of anything.
Unfortunately, I am the complete opposite (not quite OCD) and end up throwing important stuff away
 

sharke

Karyn


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I am mentally incapable of deleting an email. What if I was on fire, and the only way to put myself out was to recall an email from 2 years ago? You have to be prepared for these situations. 

If you were on fire would your first though be to turn on your computer, wait five minutes for Windoze to boot, call someone to work the mouse for you because the skin on your hands is melting, open your email program, wait another five minutes while 10 years of spam emails are indexed, search for keywords "HELP ME I'M ON FIRE FOR F*&KS SAKE", swear at BSOD as fire spreads from hands to keyboard to mini tower...
 
Or would you just run around shouting "HELP ME I'M ON FIRE FOR F*&KS SAKE"...

 I don't like anything in my inbox for very long. My wife OTOH will fill a 10gig mailbox. She has emails from 1852....that might be stretching it a little.

daryl1968

sharke

Karyn


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Delete
Empty Inbox
2 seconds...

I am mentally incapable of deleting an email. What if I was on fire, and the only way to put myself out was to recall an email from 2 years ago? You have to be prepared for these situations. 

LOL - you sound like my wife. I find coupons that expired 3 years ago - she won't dispose of anything.
Unfortunately, I am the complete opposite (not quite OCD) and end up throwing important stuff away
 

Funnily enough I am the complete opposite in my non-digital life. I love throwing stuff away. Every couple of months I have a big throwaway where I  trash stuff with reckless abandon. My dad's girlfriend is a feng-shui practitioner and she gave me a good tip: if you can't decide whether or not things should be thrown away, put them in a trash bag in the closet. If after 4 months you have never had cause to open this trash bag, throw it out. 

Karyn

sharke

Karyn


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Delete
Empty Inbox
2 seconds...

I am mentally incapable of deleting an email. What if I was on fire, and the only way to put myself out was to recall an email from 2 years ago? You have to be prepared for these situations. 

If you were on fire would your first though be to turn on your computer, wait five minutes for Windoze to boot, call someone to work the mouse for you because the skin on your hands is melting, open your email program, wait another five minutes while 10 years of spam emails are indexed, search for keywords "HELP ME I'M ON FIRE FOR F*&KS SAKE", swear at BSOD as fire spreads from hands to keyboard to mini tower...
 
Or would you just run around shouting "HELP ME I'M ON FIRE FOR F*&KS SAKE"...

I always have my computer on standby with Gmail open for this very reason. 

Starise


 I don't like anything in my inbox for very long. My wife OTOH will fill a 10gig mailbox. She has emails from 1852....that might be stretching it a little.

I'm still keeping all emails, just filing them away into folders (or Gmail's "labels") so that my inbox is empty. Having an empty inbox is a psychological advantage. Now, I can look at my inbox and see exactly which emails I need to deal with. Once they're processed, they get labeled and filed away. Gmail's labels work great on an iPhone as well, so wherever I am, things get organized. I run a busy service business in which customers communicate by email and if I'm not careful, I can get overwhelmed very quickly. 


Personal email - now I would NEVER delete any of that. I have emails going back to 2004 in my personal Gmail account (from when Gmail started). It's great going back every now and then to see what kind of stuff was going on in your mind back then. I'm always amazed at how much my writing style has changed since.