Some years ago I set about cleaning up my business email account, with the goal in mind of having a totally clean inbox so that I could look at it and immediately see how many emails need attending to. It's great because once you deal with your daily emails you have the reward of a nice empty screen to show you what a good boy you've been
It took me so long - everything had to be categorized and put into folders (or labels as Gmail calls them). Now when emails come in I reply to them and put them in their respective folders. It's a little OCD I know but it really makes me feel organized.
My personal Gmail account though, that was always another thing. Tens of thousands of emails going back 13 years. I never sorted them or deleted anything. All the crap that came in, all the product registrations and BS that I signed up for but never pursued, all the people who mistook my email address for someone else's, all the "you have received a reply to your comment" notifcations....13 years of that in my inbox. I always thought I would never ever get around to sorting it out like I did with my business email.
Well, I finally did it. Started 3 days ago and couldn't stop, it was like therapy almost. Developed a crazy workflow to search for particular types of emails and categorize them. Deleted thousands of junk mails. Rediscovered ancient conversations with friends that were really interesting to read (how much you change in 13 years - your opinions, your writing style). And finally after putting in a couple of hours tonight I have a totally clean inbox and no unread mails anywhere. I feel so complete