Does your email inbox reflect your productivity level?

Posted by Michael on 06/22/07.

I've been testing a theory for a while now that has to do with my productivity level as it relates to the number of emails in my inbox.

Simply put, the fewer emails in my inbox, the more productive I feel. There are times that my inbox reaches 150 to 200 emails... it has been as high as 400. I can't explain why it happens, but it does, and it usually happens when I'm not at the top of my game (thus the correlation).

Today I'm happy to say that for the first time in quite a while I have zero (0) emails in my inbox. Nada, zero, zilch. I don't need to file email bankruptcy. I'm email-flow positive, and will do my best to stay that way.

What do you think? Does your inbox reflect your productivity level?

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Comments

Posted by

Ari Newman

on 06/25/07.

I think there is some truth to this, but I also sometimes wonder if an empty inbox simply means you have too much free time on your hands. My inbox tends to reflect the amount of in-play things I have going on. I also leave stuff in the inbox I know I need to revisit soon. I try to use the flag feature in Apple Mail to mark stuff that needs follow-up, but I find that I end up sitting down to clean up my inbox every 2 weeks or so and leaving msgs there as reminders is more effective than visiting my flagged folder.

When I get busy, I don't have time to clean up the inbox and low-priority stuff backs up. When I've got a long flight or free time I get caught up. That said, I have also noticed that if the inbox is a mess, I feel disorganized.

Posted by

Michael Sitarzewski

on 06/25/07.

Thanks for the comment Ari. This is really what I was getting at: "That said, I have also noticed that if the inbox is a mess, I feel disorganized." Everyone uses the inbox differently, but I try not to use it as a to-do list, instead keeping all of that stuff in iCal. Act on it, then file, even if the action is a to-do in iCal. Have you used MailTags? I am anxiously awaiting the new Mail.app in Leopard too.

Posted by

bobalu

on 07/09/07.

When my inbox and desktop looks like a bad case of infotoxology, I know that I am in trouble. I feel great when there is less entropy and more order. At the same time I can not ever remember a time in my life where the box has been empty. Maybe right before I die -no sooner!