It’s quite fashionable to hate email. Countless articles have been written decrying how awful it is. Billions of dollars have been spent trying to reinvent it. And the latest fad is just to give up — screenshots proudly showing six-figure unread message counts and articles about “inbox infinity” abound.

I’ve become quite the contrarian on this subject. I love email. It’s my secret weapon. Some of the best news I’ve ever gotten came in an email. As an adoptive dad, I caught my first glimpse of two of my kids through an email. I’ve closed deals, hired amazing talent, and connected great people via email.

I love Slack as well, but there is still nothing better than email for connecting with the world outside, and looping in members of your team to get things done.

I’m sure there are a lot of people who get more email than me, but I’m no slouch in that department. I’m the CEO of a 200+ employee company with 20,000+ customers. It takes a full time executive assistant and a full time Chief of Staff to keep my world in orbit right now. My email address is also not hard to figure out. In fact, I put it right on my LinkedIn page.

And yet, I get to Inbox Zero anywhere between 1–3x a week.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me how that’s possible, so I decided I’d take a little time on vacation and write this post. (Yep, sharing ideas like these are my idea of fun.