EPISODE 031 - Organisation: How to achieve Zero Inbox?

Michael Seidl: Welcome to a new episode of the Get Shit Done in IT podcast. My name is Michael Seidel and our question of today is how to achieve zero inbox. A few episodes ago, we talked about how to handle all those tons of emails and there we talked a little bit about zero inbox. And I received a question from one of my listeners or our listeners, how to... achieve the zero inbox. So when you're not working with zero inbox, when you're not familiar with what it is, so how to achieve the zero inbox method. And for this is the session or the episode of today. So first of all is what is zero inbox? So zero inbox means that all your mail inboxes are free of read emails. There will be unread emails, of course, because otherwise it wouldn't be an inbox. But the plan is to not keep any read emails in your inbox. That means if you read an email, then you process and remove it from your inbox. So how to get there? How to achieve the zero inbox? And maybe it's not very popular, but if you're not working with zero inbox, your inbox might have hundreds of thousands of emails. You have to go through all of this and remove it from your inbox and not to just move it to a different folder and maybe go through later. Sit down, go through email, process it, delete it, forward it, the to-dos. So really work off all your emails. You have to go through this, otherwise it will not work. doesn't make sense to move it to a different folder with a different name and process it later. So the idea is to process your emails and don't need them anymore. That's the main idea of C-Rainbox. And I would suggest you to maybe not do it during...

Michael Seidl: peak hours, so maybe on a Friday afternoon, maybe on the weekend before Monday, where the chance is very low to get new emails, then sit down and process all the emails. Maybe you do it in batch processing, so not all at once, but maybe over a few weekends, it depends on your time and how many emails you have right now in there. So maybe you do it in batch processing, but the goal is to at least have once. complete zero mails in your inbox or inboxes. Okay, that's the first step. And the next one is that to commit to the zero inbox methodology. And that means that if you read an email, then you have to understand, you identify what is there to do and you plan or delegate or or take a note or whatever and remove the email from your inbox. And when you think about those methods, you will quickly understand that it is not possible anymore to do this maybe during the car drive, to during waiting for the kids from school or kindergarten, or maybe every five minutes watching your inbox on your phone. So that's not possible. So the idea is to have separated slots or separate appointments where you process your emails. So not every five minutes on your smartphone, on a specific appointment, process your email, read through your emails, and remove those quickly smartphone checks and check if there is a new email. So that doesn't make sense. It's also distracting you from whatever. you're doing. So maybe you check it during a meeting, a remote call. And if you're honest, you cannot process emails during a remote call, during a car drive, during waiting for your kids at school, whatever, doing shopping, whatever. So put away your smartphone and do not check your emails just to see if there's something new. It doesn't make sense. So the idea is to have separate slots.

Michael Seidl: So in my example, I have three slots during the day, in the morning, at lunch, and before I stop working. And in that time, I have around five to 10 minutes to process through my emails. And the agreement to myself is when I open an email, I have to process it. So if there is a huge list of emails, it is fine to keep it unread for the next slot. But if I open an email and I have to process it, so I have to decide, is it just for information, then read it and forget it, read it and remove it. If it's to delegate, delegate the task, remove it from the inbox. If you have something to do in there, Maybe it's just a short task, then do it immediately and remove the inbox. If it takes longer, then make a note in your to-do system, in your single source of shit and remove the email. Okay. If it's something as maybe read later, put it in your read later list. Okay. But remove it from your inbox. The idea is to read every email just once. Decide the action. plan or do it and remove the email. So that's the point. And if my slot is too short to process all the emails, keep it unread. Don't read it and maybe store it for later because it doesn't make sense to read it and not process the email. That's the main idea. Read, process, remove. That's the thing. And why should you do it? Because it doesn't distract you. multiple times a day when you check your inbox from any other stuff you're doing right now. So you have your slots where you process your emails and the common sense is that an email is a communication system. It is not for urgent stuff. So for urgent stuff, can use Teams, Slack, Google Meet, or just phone calls. But email usually is nothing for urgent. So it doesn't make sense.

Michael Seidl: and it's not usual and needed to check your fucking, I haven't said it, your inboxes every five minutes. also remove those pop-ups in Outlook, on your phones, whatever, when there is a new email, you don't need it. And maybe a side note, this is not, maybe not usable for... people working in customer service or in service desk because then email is the main communication. So please go to your team leader and tell them, Michael said, I don't have to process emails often and three times a day. So for service desk and customer support or something like this, this will not work. So sorry for that. You are not included in that way. But for everyone else, we are just using mail as a tool, as a messaging system. For those, I think it can work or it will work. How often do you check your emails a day? The time slot depends on how many emails you get. But in my case, three times a day works. Maybe I can reduce that as well. So just in the morning and evening. Maybe we'll try this next year. Let's see. But this is something you have to decide. I think more than three or four times a day is too much. You should do it because you will not be distracted by often checking your emails. You will not be distracted by getting some information from your inbox because it is stored. Someone sent an email three weeks ago and it's still in the inbox. You're then distracted by all the new emails and then you maybe forget what you originally wanted to do. So that's the idea. Email is a messaging system. It is not a to-do system. It's not an archive. It is just messaging. Get a message, process, remove. And that's the idea. So that's the reason why you should do it. So as a summary, Siri inbox means no read emails in your inbox or inboxes.

Michael Seidl: If you process your emails, if you read your emails, you just read it once, process the steps and remove it from the inbox. And it really helps you to reduce distraction and to keep you more focused on your project, on your to-dos, just increase your focus time. Okay. So that's the reason. So let me know if you already use Zero Inbox or not, and maybe, or maybe you want to try it. So let me know in the comments. If you have any questions, can also send me a LinkedIn message, leave a comment, whatever you like. so I wish you a nice Monday, productive week, and bye bye.