‘Inbox Zero’ is a strategy developed by US podcaster, Merlin Mann, to stop the stresses of an overloaded email inbox in three steps:-
- Completely clear your email inbox to start with a clean slate. Mann said, ‘If you can find the time to check email, you must also use that time to do something with that email.’
- Set your inbox to retrieve emails only at intervals, not every time a message arrives; unsubscribe from newsletters and organise folders by deadline not by subject.
- Thereafter only check and deal with your emails during dedicated email management periods of time.
Emails prove hugely distracting as they constantly drop into your inbox and – according to one study – it can take up to 23 minutes to regain focus after a distraction!