As we discussed email in the last episode, email management of multiple accounts has its positives and negatives. All of us, Augusto, Art, Francis and I have multiple email accounts. And, to be honest, I don’t know many people who have only one solitary email account. But, whether you have one inbox, or 10 inboxes, one methodology that’s cropped up and lingered for nearly two decades is the idea of Inbox Zero. In this cast, we discuss the history of Inbox Zero (with the pros and cons), some related concepts that I’ve theorized over the years (namely my Inbox One and Tab Zero methods, the former of which I hinted at in the last cast), and get feedback and permutations from the ProductivityCast team. We close with some thoughts on email message processing. Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).

In this Cast

Ray Sidney-Smith

Augusto Pinaud

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes

Resources we mention, including links to them will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9UjeTMb3Yk

“Inbox Zero” (GoogleTechTalks) by Merlin Mann

Getting Things Done by David Allen

43 Folders Series: Inbox Zero (also by Merlin Mann)

Forget ‘Inbox Zero’: Your empty email account means nothing

Evernote

Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 (ScanSnap Cloud)

Ray’s Web browser corollary to Inbox Zero, Tab Zero

Raw Text Transcript

Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is h:mm:ss.ms to h:mm:ss.ms (e.g., 0:00:00.000,0:00:04.000 starts at 0.00 seconds and ends at 4 seconds in the cast's audio).

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are you ready to manage your work and

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personal world better to live a

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fulfilling productive life then you've

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come to the right place

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productivity cast the weekly show about

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all things productivity here are your

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hosts ray Sydney Smith and Augusto

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pronounces weight and art Galax welcome

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everybody to productivity cast episode 0

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to 9 episode 29 inbox zero inbox 1 and

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processing email messages we are going

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to be talking about the all-encompassing

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inbox and how to deal with your inbox

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and so I wanted to lead off because as

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we discussed email in the last episode

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email management of multiple accounts

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has its positives and negatives all of

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us Augusto art Francis and I have

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multiple email accounts and to be honest

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I don't know how many people who have

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only one single solitary email account

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but whether you have one inbox or 10

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inboxes one methodology that's cropped

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up over the past decade is the idea of

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inbox zero it came from Merlin Mann who

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did a google Tech Talk back in 2007 and

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I will put a link to that in the show

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notes if those of you who want to watch

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I believe is about an hour or so he

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talks about this idea of inbox zero so

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in this cast we're gonna discuss a

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little bit about inbox zero its pros and

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cons some related concepts that I've

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kind of thought about over the past

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couple of years namely inbox 1 and the

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tab 0 methods and get feedback and

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permutations from the productivity cast

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team will close them with some thoughts

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on email message processing from my

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esteemed colleagues and I think this is

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gonna be a great podcast it's gonna have

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a lot of really great information for us

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all so let's kick it off with who wants

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to kind of describe in brief the concept

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of inbox 0

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what Merlin Mann was really talking

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about as a as a kind of extension of

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getting things done by David Allen and

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this idea of of capturing and then

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processing ones inboxes I don't know if

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any of us

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truly understand what the current

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definition of that is I know what mine

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is and and I'm sure - not matching

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what's in the literature but in the

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mentality of being able to get eliminate

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all actionable items and processing

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items from a common email inbox or a

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singular email inbox

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that's to my knowledge that's it in a

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nutshell now what have I missed guys I

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will add a couple of things you know

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what what Merlin man was talking about

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when he was talking about inbox zero is

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that David Allen talked about this idea

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that your task inbox should really be

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cleared out every 24 to 48 hours and I

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don't actually know what David Allen was

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specifically thinking but I have tended

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to think about that from the perspective

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that he wasn't talking about necessarily

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your communications inboxes that is

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email and voicemail boxes and so forth

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he was really talking about your in tray

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the basket in which you receive your

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inputs right so whether you took notes

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or received letters or memos or whatever

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that inbox was the one that I perceive

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him to frequently be talking about not

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necessarily your email inbox but it is

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another one of those in baskets as he

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talks about and getting things done so I

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get it my thought here is that it's

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really important or let me take a step

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back what I believe Merlin Mann was

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talking about and and sort of the the

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crux of what he was talking about was

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that very similar to the way that we

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receive mail in our home mail boxes we

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receive a an influx of physical inputs

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and we take those out and we deal with

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them and we don't put them back in the

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mail box right they it's sort of a

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one-way conveyor belt if you want to

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think of it that way that we process

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things and go go from there so

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if we want to if we want to have a clear

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sort of runway in in or ground level in

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GTD language we then need to that we

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need to then have a an ability to

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process or clarify those things that are

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coming in as inputs and and dealing with

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just the things that are new as they're

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coming in the inbox is a poor place to

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manage inputs if we've got a whole bunch

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of other stuff in there that may or may

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not even be organized but the things

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that come in into in should truly be new

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stuff coming in not just old stuff

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that's been hanging around so one of the

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interesting things about the time Merlyn

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...