so, i have a seemingly infinite list of nerdy books i've read and would like to read (anyone who has been privy to my amazon wishlist will attest to what a geek i am, book-wise). this month, i tackled getting things done. and while i don't think anyone puts into place each and every one of the methods he proposes to get completely organized and make life more efficient (he acknowledges this throughout the book - tailoring things to what works for you), one idea i couldn't wrap my mind around was an inbox-zero approach. an empty inbox. reaching the bottom.
i use gmail, and, i think it's probably safe to say that most people who use gmail tend to let it just accumulate. it's so easy to just go back and search, and the capacity gets larger every day. since i started using the service in about 2004, i really hadn't deleted any email. at all. i had over 16,000 emails in my inbox. david allen would probably have shot me on sight if he knew.
last night, that all changed. inspired by my friend, roz, i whittled my inbox down to a mere 22 emails. without just mindlessly archiving thousands of emails. after a lot of selective searching to figure out what the bulk of my email even was (mailing lists, unsurprisingly, but some i had forgotten i was on altogether made up hundreds of the emails collecting dust in there).
so, now i feel a little naked, with barely two dozen emails in my empty little inbox. but i do feel a little more in control of things - i know the action associated with each other emails in there, and i know i'm not forgetting to get back to someone about something. it's kind of... nice. (if i could only achieve basement zero, that woud be progress.)