5 EASY STEPS TO

ACHIEVING INB0X ZER0

CONSISTENTLY
It takes far, FAR less time and energy to maintain

your email inbox at zero than at a thousand. Follow

these steps to regain control of your inbox.

STEP 1
START WITH THE OBVIOUS

Don’t worry about getting everything — just the low-hanging fruit.

You’ll be coming back and processing these once you have the rest of

your workflow dialed in.

Unsubscribe from every newsletter, notification

list, and broadcast list that isn’t absolutely

essential. Use a service like Unroll.me if necessary.

Forward all your email accounts to Gmail, or

whatever service you have to use for work.

Use Mailstrom to batch delete hundreds (or

thousands) of unimportant emails at a time, and

then move all remaining emails from your inbox

to a specially marked folder.

STEP 2
STRIP EMAIL DOWN TO ITS CORE FUNCTION

And that’s collecting new inputs. Stop using your inbox as a to-do list,

an agenda, a filing cabinet, a magazine rack, or a trash can. Here’s

how to create a streamlined email environment:

Turn off multiple inboxes: Settings > Inbox tab >

set Inbox type to Default > uncheck all Categories,

except for Primary

Turn off all “smart” features

Stars: Settings > General > set Presets: to 1 star

(which you’re not going to use)

Personal level indicators: Settings > General > set

Personal level indicators to no indicators

System labels: Settings > Labels > hide all system

labels except for Sent, Drafts, All Mail, and (if you

want) Spam
Categories: Settings > Labels > hide all categories in

label list and message list

Labels: Settings > Labels > delete all labels at the

bottom
Importance markers: Settings > Inbox > set

Importance markers to no markers

Filters: Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses tab

> delete all filters

Turn off the chat: Settings > Chat tab > set Chat: to

Chat off

Turn off all notifications: Settings > General tab >

set Desktop Notifications: to Mail notifications off

STEP 3
SET UP FOUR DOWNSTREAM SYSTEMS

Every email can be handled by a digital calendar, a task manager, a

reference app, and a read later app.

Download a calendar app on every device

and sync your calendars across all of them, so

any time-specific event, commitment,

appointment, or decision can go immediately

on your calendar.

Download a task manager such as Todoist or

Things, activate the “Add task” shortcut, and

practice creating new email-based tasks.

Download Evernote (or another notetaking

app) on all devices. Add the “forward-to” email

address to your Gmail Contacts. Now you can

simply forward emails that you want to keep to

your notetaking app.

Download a Read Later app such as

Instapaper or Matter on all devices, and

practice saving email newsletter to it.

STEP 4
STREAMLINE YOUR WORKFLOW

Develop a workflow that lets you make a decisive decision about what

needs to be done about each email, immediately sending it to an

appropriate place where it will be dealt with at the right time. Here

are three actions you can take to make this easier:

Turn on auto-advance to show the next email

instead of your inbox after you delete, archive or

mute a conversation.

Turn on keyboard shortcuts: Settings > General

> Keyboard Shortcuts on

Turn on conversation threads: Settings >

General > Conversation View on

STEP 5
PRACTICE MAKING TRIAGE DECISIONS

Finally, use all the systems and workflow tweaks you’ve made to take

a complete inventory of everything new that’s been sent your way. Sit

down in focus mode and methodically clear your inbox.

Follow the sequence: Open Gmail and start with the oldest

email in your inbox. Decide what needs to be done and take

one of six possible actions:

Archive immediately

Reply, then archive

Add to calendar, then archive

Create a task, then archive

Send to notetaking app, then archive

Send to read later app, then archive