Comments on: Living Zero: Part 1, What It Feels Like

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:25:43 +0000

Justin, the point I was making here is that when dealing with physical messages we sort them. Obviously if people were sorting them into other folders their inbox wouldn’t have messages in it just as we would sort our physical mail when we receive it. There are indeed other factors that come into play that will be further discussed in the series. Thanks for reading.

By: Justin Scott

Justin Scott — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:09:18 +0000

“Once you have received the mail you sort them into junk mail, personal, bills, and the like. But never do you walk back outside to your mailbox and put the items back in for storage.”

I think that is a flawed analogy. If you follow that to its logical conclusion, you wouldn’t have folders in your e-mail box at all (or maybe that’s your point). Everything would come in, then get filed into another program (to-do list, task manager, saved to a folder on the hard drive, whatever).

Regardless of where those items end up, they’re still going to be stored somewhere until they get done, whether it be in a task list application, written on a whiteboard, or just left sitting in the inbox or one of its folders.

By: cheapRoc

cheapRoc — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:25:47 +0000

A buddy and myself started on Inbox Zero a year or so ago, and it really proves itself. However, you don’t get the full effect until you utilize it with a GTD app. My process involves reviewing an email, then hitting Opt-Space and entering in a To-do item if applicable. I then review the to-do items when I get a chance and sort accordingly or take care of them.

My inbox now involves only quick messages, almost like IM software. If its something I need to reply to or forward, and I can’t at the moment, I flag it for when I can “handle it as actual email”. But those are few and far between.

Nice post!