A Model of Your Inbox

The problem with this is that it isn't a model of an inbox -- it's a model of a to-do list to which anybody but you can add items. What you really want to do is process an email into something besides an email -- by quickly responding to it, by rephrasing it as a to-do item, by trashing it, or by 'hitting snooze' and getting a reminder in a day or a week.

Your inbox is for messages; it's a way to see what people are saying to you. As messages leave the inbox, they should be transformed into something that tells you what people want from you.

One of the topics I saw among the comments was a means of distinguishing something that needed to be done and done now (urgent / important).

I propose a solution. Allow people to send you what I call a PEmail. This is an email with a very specific project outlined. Instead of just a subject line, the PEmail has a subject line for the project's name and a time due line. Your email client then automatically organizes the incoming PEmails by when the project is due.

There's only two quadrants for me: important or unimportant.

An important email is something work-related or an email from a significant other.

If it's important I read/respond immediately then archive it. All unimportant emails get archived instantly. This keeps my inbox empty and my mind at ease.

If I'm bored, I'll read the unimportant emails.

This system is simple and makes life a little less complicated.

On a related note: I'm running an experiment on what people miss most in an email client. Currently Snooze This Message and the ability to add private notes to emails are winning.

Would be interesting to see what a more tech oriented crowd thinks, so feel free to vote - or add your own ideas.

http://ideas.vapormarket.com

To deal with emails like "cake on my desk", how about a "not relevant after $TIME" tag?

I know the cake won't last, so why I would tag it for automatic deletion after 3 hours. Anyone who misses the email won't have to waste time deleting it later.

Give me a "move email up/down" feature and you solve half of my problems.

Basically Stephen Covey’s time management matrix applied on emails.

A categorized Twitter could be the answer to too much email!

Allow me to group followers into categories. Business, family & friends, social media community, etc. It forces us to get to the point in 140 characters and should continue such, but add a link to view more of what the communication received from a follower says(still keeping a character limit)... if I choose to do so.

A similar thing was covered in Randy Pausch's lecture on time management.