Inbox Zero Report Card

Well, it's been just over a month working under Inbox Zero and it's time for a report card.

I give the Inbox Zero process an A. I believe that the ideals are a fantastic defense against one's own connectivity.

Unfortunately, I had to give myself a B minus for my personal implementation.

Here are my notes:

• Did Not Break Old Habits - I found it terribly difficult to break my old habits. I too often switched to my inbox without even thinking. Sometimes I had the discipline to click away quickly, but other times I saw a pressing e-mail and jumped right back in.
• Did Process to Zero - I did pretty well, Deleting, Delegating, Responding, Deferring, and Doing as the only means to clear out every waiting e-mail every hour. I found Microsoft's Windows Desktop Search invaluable in that it allowed me to throw away inbox items with confidence that I could find them again later on with a quick search.
  
  The breakdown went something like this:
• Delete 70%
• Delegate 5%
• Respond 15%
• Defer 5%
• Do 5%
• Did Work Well With Colleagues - I had no problems with colleagues complaining about delayed responses. Those who read the blog knew about my plans and those who didn't... well, we're all pretty busy. In most cases getting some sort of response within an hour is pretty darn good.

I'm reading a new book now in which the author advises checking e-mail only twice a day, once at noon and once at 4PM. These are the optimized times at which you're most likely to have received a response from your previous e-mail dash.

I'll save the title of the book for another post...

In the mean time, I'll continue to strive for Inbox Zero Zen. Stay tuned!

Comments

[HL Arledge]

I'm wondering how the Zero Defect strategy is working for a Client Services Manager's inbox compared to a CTO's.