The Monthly Huddle: Inbox Zero

Welcome to the August edition of The Monthly Huddle– A short, sweet, and to-the-point advice blog for tackling some of business management’s most difficult questions! Have you heard of “inbox zero?” It’s a strategy first discussed by productivity expert Merlin Mann to help us manage our share of the 200 billion emails sent every day. 

What is Inbox Zero?

While it’s often mistaken as the number of emails we should keep in our inbox, the concept of inbox zero refers to the amount of time an employee should spend thinking about their emails when they aren’t actively engaged in reading or writing them. 

According to CNBC, “During the workday, respondents reported spending an average of 209 minutes checking their work email and 143 minutes checking their personal email, for a total of 352 minutes (about five hours and 52 minutes) each day.”

With those numbers in mind, it’s easy to see why email management has become such a hot topic in the business world. If people spend their days at work constantly dealing with emails, when are they supposed to get anything else done?

The 5 D’s 

To help right the wrongs of email overload, Mann recommends the “touch it once” method. It ensures that you never end up with emails sitting and waiting after you’ve read them. 

Essentially, you immediately do one of these five things with every email that passes your inbox threshold:

1. Delete– This includes spam, marketing that you’re not going to use, newsletters, memos that don’t have a task for you to complete, etc. 
2. Delegate- If you have a team who can handle whatever is being asked in the email, send it along to them immediately. Don’t try to deal with it yourself if it’s taking away from your actual duties. 
3. Depot- Every once in a while, there are emails that you need for reference. Give yourself an upper limit of 3-5 “depot” folders where things you HAVE to keep can have a home. 
4. Defer- If the task takes more than 5 minutes, you should defer the email. Create a “Defer” folder and move any communication that requires extra attention into it. Then, add the task to your to-do list. Once the action is done, check it off and move on to inbox zero bliss. 
5. Do- Most of your emails will fall into the “Do” category. If it takes less than 5 minutes, just do it the moment you read the email. No delaying or pinning, or drafting a response. Just get it done. 

Once you’ve got the hang of the 5 Ds of inbox zero, you’ll be more efficient at making snap decisions regarding what to do with each email you see in a day. Soon, you’ll find that hearing the notification ping doesn’t cause a pang of stress as one more thing is added to your plate. Instead, you’ll feel confident knowing you’ll be able to take care of whatever the email says without impacting your productivity.