Stop trying to achieve inbox zero. Practice email triage and email bankruptcy instead.

Inbox zero is an unproductive practice.

I was a C-level executive in a major education institution for three years and a Vice President in the fastest growing segment of the organization for five years before that.

I received, on an average day, about 200 emails. I practiced religious unsubscribing from all newsletters and mass emails. My rules filtered calendar invites, emails where I was not on the to line, and other routine abuses of email out of my inbox. Even with all of that, at least 100 of those emails came from people expecting me to read, comprehend, and in at least 50% of the cases, respond.

I realized I could do email or I could do my job.

For the first decade of my career, I could maintain Inbox zero with little difficulty. As the responsibilities increased, my ability to address every email with the level of care and concern I once had diminished. I was lucky to have an exceptional admin who helped to address routine issues and highlight emails that needed my attention, but even so things went unanswered.

I adopted email triage and email bankruptcy instead of inbox zero.

I triaged my inbox every day. I reviewed emails from my supervisor, my team, and those with whom I was working on projects. I skimmed subject lines. My admin skimmed most other emails looking for issues that might be blowing up that still had poorly written subject lines. I let me team know if they didn’t receive a response to something they felt urgent, email probably was the wrong way to approach it. After triaging daily, I moved things to my reviewed folder (email bankruptcy) and could still reference it if needed.

How do you stay on top of email and not lose yourself in a sea of other people’s priorities?

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