It doesn’t matter how good or bad you are at your job, when your inbox hits zero you are instantly the coolest person at work. I’ve noticed myself that when I’m trying to explain something to a colleague, the second they catch a glimpse of my (empty) inbox I know that I've lost their attention to my explanation.
Inbox zero is not a myth. And it’s not hard to achieve it, once you have the right system in place. I have to admit I actually never really aimed for inbox zero. My inbox has always been manageable - not too full, several unread emails, some of them deliberately marked as unread as a reminder that I had to act on it at a suitable time. This system worked well for me, until one day I read about the ‘Touch It Once’ principle.
Touch It Once
The main idea of this principle is that you decide what to do with any incoming task immediately. An incoming task is most of the time an email, but can also be a household chore, a colleague or a friend asking you to do something for them, or your own ideas. As you can imagine, my system of marking an email as 'unread' to remind myself to act on it at a later time goes right against this principle.
The most powerful thing about this principle is that it clears mental space, allowing you to focus on the things that really matter in the moment. I never realized it, but all those marked-as-unread emails kept running in the back of my mind, claiming space in my mental CPU. Also, every time you re-read an email, you are spending time on the same thing over and over again. This realization was a real eye-opener to me.
When I adopted the Touch It Once principle I noticed that I didn’t think about those unread emails at all anymore, after closing Outlook. I mentally parked the emails, let them go, and moved on to complete something else with full focus.
How it works
When I first read about the principle, the first thing I thought was “but how am I supposed to complete every incoming task immediately?!”. After examining it more closely I discovered that I had misunderstood the principle. It says to decide what to do with the task, not complete the task. Phew.
Essentially, there are three things you can decide to do (those who are familiar with Getting Things Done may recognize this): do the task, plan to do the task at a later time, or delegate it. To decide on your decision - this article has become very meta - you can follow this flowchart:
My Inbox Zero flowchart - also available as .pdf download!
The first question should be whether the task should be completed by you, or whether someone else is better cut out for the job. Or perhaps you were just CC’ed in the email and the task is really for someone else, in which case you can go ahead and archive that email immediately. In this article, the word ‘archive' can mean the literal Archive function of your email program, or a specific themed folder you created yourself. For instance, I created several folders for specific topics I work on and archive emails related to those topics in their respective folder. I also use the Outlook general archive folder for newsletters or other general emails.
In case you determined that you are the responsible person for the task, you need to assess how much time it will take you to complete the task. I deliberately put in ‘X' minutes, because the cut-off time can differ for everyone. In Getting Things Done the cut-off time is 2 minutes, in blogs I’ve seen 5 minutes, but really it is up to you how much time you are willing to allocate for an immediate action, or how much time you have available in the moment.
If you need to defer the task, make sure to plan when you are going to do it. You can add it to today’s to-do list, tomorrow’s to-do list, next week’s to-do list, whatever is appropriate, as long as you note it down somewhere. If the task is very important and you really need to get it done before a certain date or time, I recommend to block time in your calendar as an extra commitment to that task.
Specially for you, my loyal readers, I bonus-added some recommended inbox folders in the flowchart, some of which are based on Getting Things Done (GTD). For the emails that you act upon immediately, you can archive them in your email program’s archive, or archive them in a specific folder you created. When you decide to do the task another time, GTD recommends to collect the pending tasks in a specific folder called “Action”. When I adopted the Touch It Once principle I created this folder and it works quite well. After I complete the task I archive the email. In case you need to delegate the task but still need a confirmation or other information and therefore can’t archive the email just yet, GTD recommends to save the email in a folder called “Waiting for”. That way, you register that you are waiting for a reply and don't need to keep the email in your inbox as a reminder to follow up when a reply doesn’t come in. I use this folder as a substitute for the ‘mark as unread’ system I first had. If you can delegate the task without further action or correspondence, get rid of the email by archiving or deleting it.
After the decisions
Now your inbox is empty. Cherish this moment.
Another productivity technique I use is to only check my emails at pre-set times. Now that I added the Touch It Once principle to my M.O. I don’t only check my inbox anymore, but also the “Action" and “Waiting for” folders. The combination of checking my emails at specific times, touching them once, and checking those specific folders, makes me feel on top of things instead of restless because of the number of unread emails in my inbox. Also, because the to-dos are written down somewhere, my brain does not store them, clearing attentional space and enabling me to focus better on my work and tasks.
While I was content with the system I had before and with the way my inbox, I am happy to discover a technique that improved my inbox life significantly, and I hope it can do the same for you!